ATLANTA — Georgia 400, just a few miles short of downtown Atlanta, was at a dead stop Sunday. Police say a driver heading north in the southbound lanes caused a serious accident.
"We're just wondering how he got down that far without realizing he was going the wrong way,” driver Haley Stutts said.
It happened where the toll booths used to be. Atlanta Police say the driver, Patty Ann Cressaty, entered the highway headed in the wrong direction, and was critically hurt in the crash.
According to the police report, Cressaty admitted to a doctor that she went the wrong way because she was trying to commit suicide.
A good Samaritan at the scene tried to help.
"She just needed help, and people were screaming and nobody was helping her. So, I just ran over there and just yanked the door open and tried to get here out of the car as best as I could," a witness said.
The southbound lanes had to be shut down. It took hours for the traffic flow to get back to normal. Some drivers said it had to be frightening to be traveling down the highway and see a wrong way vehicle heading straight toward you.
"The accident looks horrible. We did not know when we looked at it at the time that it was a wrong-way driver,” witness Bo Duncan said.
Cressaty was cited with reckless driving and driving the wrong way.
WSBTV
