OAK CREEK, Wis. — Interstate 94 is back open Friday night after a serious crash and manhunt left it closed for hours.
It was a tense and chaotic night for the people living in the neighborhood right next off the Drexel exit of I-94 on South Wynona Drive. They were the first to hear a crash and the first to jump into action when the suspect ran.
“They were yelling from the interstate, ‘Did you see him, did you see him? He’s running,’” said Jacelyn Ahrens who was visiting a friend in the neighborhood.
The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office said a driver in a red SUV hit a motorcyclist. While people were trying to save the person on the bike, the driver of the SUV took off.
“We all canvased the neighborhood,” said Jacelyn Ahrens.
“The cops came through. We saw a K9 come through. So a lot of things were going on,” said another witness and neighbor Archana Salvi.
Salvi said her family looked until they worried the suspect might be dangerous. Instead she and others in the neighborhood opened up their homes and their kitchens to the drivers stuck on the freeway.
“Everybody was looking for food. They were thirsty. They were asking for water,” said Salvi.
By the time we found Salvi, she gave out her families’ dinner, water bottles, basically anything in her home to the drivers stuck on the freeway for hours.
“It feels really sad that this happened behind our backyards and the fact somebody got hurt real bad and the person didn’t stay back and ran,” said Salvi.
The sheriff’s office said the driver was caught around 9 p.m. The driver of the motorcycle was seriously hurt. Salvi said a friend of her’s jumped the barricades to give the person CPR before an ambulance arrived and took the motorcyclist to the hospital.
