Two adults and a 2-year-old child died, and three others were injured in a crash involving a wrong-way driver on Interstate 35 in Duluth during the early morning hours of Monday.
A 1997 Toyota 4Runner, driven by Duluth resident Aaron David Dame, 23, was traveling north on southbound I-35 near 40th Avenue West when it struck a 2001 GMC Yukon head-on shortly before 1 a.m. Monday, according to the State Patrol.
The crash killed both Dame and the Yukon’s driver, Duanda Letrice Robinson, 26, of Duluth, according to the State Patrol.
Two-year-old Damiah Anne Anderson of Duluth, who was a passenger in Robinson’s vehicle, died after being transported to Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center, the Patrol reported. A fundraiser has been set up for Duanda Robinson and Damiah Anderson
here
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Dame’s passenger, Abigail Kristine Ptasnik, 22, of Duluth, was transported to the Hennepin County Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.
Two passengers in Robinson’s vehicle - Arriana Nicole Norling, 22, of Minneapolis and an infant boy from Minneapolis named Jajaun Anthony Starks - were transported to Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center with what authorities described as non-life-threatening injuries
Alcohol was found in Dame’s system, the Patrol reported. Neither Dame nor Ptasnik were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash, authorities said.
The span of highway where the crash occurred has seen several wrong-way incidents in recent years.
In August 2016, four people were injured in two separate wrong-way crashes near 40th Avenue West that occurred two days apart. Both of those crashes involved suspected drunken drivers. A Milwaukee man, David John Cruz, was convicted of criminal vehicular operation in one of the crashes; the other involved a juvenile driver.
On June 2, 2017, Dennis Edlund, 77, drove his 2009 Hyundai Sonata the wrong way on I-35 from the Michigan Street exit in downtown Duluth through the Lincoln Park neighborhood - where a three-vehicle collision took place - and onto the Bong Bridge, still going the wrong way at speeds estimated by the Minnesota State Patrol to be well over 55 mph. Edlund died when his car smashed into a Dodge pickup truck near the center span of the bridge. An investigation was unable to determine why Edlund made the fatal mistake.
