Kimberly Freadhoff felt a gust of wind rush by as the 2003 Porsche Boxster roared past, so close that it nudged her midsize sedan slightly to the right as she drove west on Hwy. 5 near Laketown Parkway in Waconia Friday morning.
"I thought, my gosh, he needs to slow down, he has a death wish," she recalled thinking. "I was going 55 and he passed me like I was standing still. He was going at least 100."
Seconds later Freadhoff saw a spark and a cloud of debris drift over the highway. The westbound Porsche driver had narrowly missed hitting an oncoming vehicle, then rear-ended a pickup truck right in front of her.
Freadhoff said she was the first to render aid to the driver, identified by the State Patrol as 48-year-old Paul Dufour of Plymouth. Freadhoff said she was shaking as she applied pressure to a head wound until a motorcyclist who was a trained EMT came upon the scene and took over until paramedics arrived.
"He was hunched over and had blood gushing from his head," she said. "He was pinned in the vehicle. He kept saying 'I want to get out. I want to get out.'"
Dufour was transported to a local hospital and later airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. He was in critical condition as of Friday afternoon, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The pickup truck driver, Robert Martinez, 44, of Richfield, was taken to Ridgeview Medical Center in Waconia with noncritical injuries, the State Patrol said.
Throughout the day on Friday, numerous people posted on social media that they also had seen the speeding driver, who crashed about 6:40 a.m.
Authorities shut down Hwy. 5 between Steiger Lake Lane and County Road 92 for more than four hours as they did a crash reconstruction. They also had to sweep up nails that spilled on the highway from the pickup truck. The road reopened around 11:30 a.m., the Minnesota Department of Transportation said.
Freadhoff, of Maple Grove, was on her way to serve breakfast and shadow teachers at Lakeside Elementary School when the she saw the horrific crash. For her, it brought back sad memories of childhood when she lost her 8-year-old brother in a crash. They were riding on a school bus together when the bus driver, who she said was drunk, crashed.
"Life is too short to live recklessly," she said. "Whatever he was late for was not worth it. This is tragic. God spared me today. If he [the Porsche driver] had rear-ended me, I don't know where I'd be."
The crash remains under investigation.
Tim Harlow • 612-673-7768
