Someone threw objects from overpasses on Northeast Padden Parkway very early Sunday, and a rock crashed through a motorist’s windshield, narrowly missing him and his 17-year-old son.
Two incidents of objects thrown from overpasses along Padden were reported about 2 a.m. Sunday, an emergency dispatcher with the Washington State Patrol said Monday evening. One case was reported at 137th Avenue.
“That’s a problem area for us,” the dispatcher said. No one was reported seriously injured.
Dan Neely of Vancouver said he was driving west near 130th Avenue, at the 50 mph speed limit, when a 6-inch rock bounced off his hood and crashed through the windshield of his 2007 Suzuki SUV.
“A couple of inches one way or the other and it would have hit me in the face, or hit my boy in the face,” he said. “We were blessed.”
Neely said glass fragments caused some small cuts on his face and something nicked his son’s arm, causing it to bleed.
He said the rock came to rest by the Suzuki’s center console.
If he’d known assailants sometimes hurl rocks onto the parkway, Neely said, “I’d probably have gone another way.”
Replacing the windshield cost about $250, and the cost to repair the hood wasn’t known, said Neely, who said he works as a maintenance supervisor for a property management company.
On three nights in October 2008, three such incidents were reported on Padden, according to The Columbian’s files.
In one, about 9:30 p.m., someone threw a bicycle frame onto Padden near 130th Avenue and a woman hit it with her truck.
One of several rocks tossed off the 130th Avenue overpass, near Heritage High School, hit the hood and smashed the windshield of a Clark County Sheriff’s deputy’s patrol car about 10 p.m.
The officer wasn’t reported injured, but damage to the taxpayer-owned patrol car was estimated at $1,500.
And about 2 a.m., someone hurled a wheel and tire off an overpass onto Padden and it hit a vehicle.
Police say such assailants seriously endanger people and officers take such cases seriously. Anyone with information about the recent incidents along Padden is asked to call 911.
John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.<I>
