DUII driver arrested after wrong-way Hwy. 97 crash

A Bend woman was arrested early Wednesday on drunken and reckless driving charges, among others, after driving the wrong way on the Bend Parkway and U.S. Highway 97 and crashing head-on into another car south of Bend, Deschutes County sheriff’s deputies said.

Deputies responded shortly after 4 a.m. to reports of a dark-colored sedan driving southbound in the northbound lanes of the Bend Parkway at Pinebrook Boulevard, sheriff’s Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp said.

Deschutes 911 dispatchers received several calls about the wrong-way driver, who continued south onto Highway 97 before crashing head-on into a northbound silver Ford Escape driven by a 69-year-old La Pine man south of the Baker Road exit, Vander Kamp said.

Deputies said their investigation found that the wrong-way driver of a Ford Focus, Beverly Marsden, 60, of Bend, “was impaired at the time of the collision and unaware of the divided highway,” Vander Kamp said in a news release.

Both drivers were uninjured in the crash, though both vehicles had substantial damage, the sergeant said.

Marsden was arrested and booked into the county jail on charges of DUII-alcohol, reckless driving, recklessly endangering another and fourth-degree assault. She was held on $20,000 bail, jail records showed.

Deputies were assisted at the scene by Bend Police Department officers.