Officials with the Minnesota State Patrol says a wrong-way driver heading westbound in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 394 crashed head-on into an oncoming car, killing that driver and injuring a passenger in that vehicle.
The wrong way driver has been identified as a 20-year-old man from St. Anthony, who investigators believe drove his jeep onto the freeway at 6th Street in downtown Minneapolis.
The collision happened around 4:00 a.m. Friday at the Plymouth Ave. exit in Minnetonka.
The driver of the vehicle that was struck is a 30-year-old man from Melrose.
That man's ID has not been released, while his 21-year-old passenger suffered non life-threatening injuries.
The wrong-way driver, who was operarting a Jeep, was also injured, and the State Patrol believes that alcohol was involved.
Charges have not yet been filed.
Both Jason DeRusha of WCCO-TV and WCCO Radio Morning News Producer Jimmy Erickson were witnesses to the wrong-way drive.
DeRusha says he was able to swerve about a second before he would have been hit head-on.
"I feel like my insides are spinning and have been spinning since just before four o'clock this morning," DeRusha told WCCO's Chad Hartman. "When you have a moment where you think today I was perhaps a second away from being dead. Yeah. That feels bad enough. But then when you find out that someone else is? Yeah."
Erickson, in a post on Facebook Friday afternoon said it was a heartbreaking moment when he heard there was a fatality.
"When our first traffic report came on at 5:09 am with Jerry Peterson, he announced a fatal crash on 394 near Ridgedale. My heart sank. The worst fears had come true."