Why did Sheila M. Walls drive the wrong way in the westbound lanes of state Highway 14 in Vancouver late Saturday afternoon?

Was she confused as she headed toward collisions with three westbound cars — and a narrow miss with a fourth vehicle — that would injure two people and cause her death?

Did something distract her?

“We’ll never know why she was doing that,” Trooper Dave Bourland with the Washington State Patrol said Monday. “She has the answer.”

Walls, 29, a resident of Estacada, Ore., was found dead at the scene.

There’s been no indication she was suicidal, Bourland said.

Even the question whether Walls was impaired by alcohol or drugs will have to wait several weeks until toxicology samples from her body are analyzed. She’d just left a memorial service in downtown Vancouver.

Bourland said authorities still are not certain where Walls entered Highway 14 but previously said a truck driver observed her entering the C Street ramp for westbound drivers coming into downtown.

The autopsy revealed that Walls died of multiple blunt force injuries, and her death is considered an accident, an investigator for the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office said Monday.

But one thing is known, Trooper Bourland said: If a wrong-way driver is headed toward you and other drivers, the safest place for you to be is in your right lane, the outside lane.

Trooper Steve Schatzel, another veteran officer and the WSP spokesman, agreed.

“Generally the wrong-way driver is in the fast lane,” Schatzel said. “In their mind, they think they are going in the right direction.”

In Saturday’s crashes, all four westbound drivers were in their left lane, the fast lane and the most dangerous in encounters with wrong-way drivers, troopers said.

“We got lucky that more people were not hurt or killed,” Schatzel said.

It’s an especially good idea to stay in your right lane when fog or other weather conditions limit visibility, Bourland said. That’s when drivers might become confused and head up a freeway exit ramp the wrong way.

However, visibility was good for motorists Saturday afternoon.

Another way to avoid head-on collisions with wrong-way drivers is to look farther ahead than many drivers do, Bourland said. Training yourself to do that can increase the time you have to react and avoid a crash.

“You want to look a good thousand feet ahead if it’s feasible,” Bourland said. “Look as far as you can see, and see what’s up there.”

Troopers are taught to look far ahead in the WSP academy, and Bourland said that training helped him avoid a head-on crash with a wrong-way driver near Seattle in 2006.

Four people escaped injury in the 4:35 p.m. string of crashes east of Grand Boulevard, but two were hurt.

Elizabeth M. Gonsalves, 32, of Camas suffered a fractured neck, spine and left wrist and abdominal injuries, according to a WSP bulletin. She remained in serious condition Monday evening in intensive care at Southwest Washington Medical Center, a nursing supervisor said.

Brian J. Gonsalves, 33, of Camas, who was driving a 2004 Acura that crashed head-on with Walls’ 1991 Honda Accord, suffered a broken ankle, the bulletin said. He was treated and released Sunday.

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.

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