Deputy saves motorist from fire after pursuit

By Mara Stine

The Gresham Outlook, Aug 4, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Contributed photo by GLADSTONE POLICE

This is a close-up of the vehicle, before the fire department arrived, as flames consume the engine compartment and the surrounding hillside.

A Clackamas County sheriff’s deputy pulled a resident of Boring from a burning car following a pursuit Monday, Aug. 3.

It started at 1:15 p.m. when the deputy saw a motorist run a red light near Highway 212/224 and Southeast 82nd Drive while the deputy was on a mission with the Multi-Agency Traffic Team, said Det. Jim Strovink, sheriff’s office spokesman.

The deputy – Robert Nashif – tried to pull the motorist over, but the driver sped southbound on I-205 in her gold Dodge Stratus. Then she took the 82nd Drive/Gladstone off-ramp so fast that her car launched into the air, crashed into a large embankment and caught on fire.

Arriving on the scene, Nashif saw flames spreading from the car to dry grass surrounding it.

“You have to get out of this car now – it’s going to explode,” he told the driver. But she resisted his efforts to save her, so the deputy pulled her out against her will.

The chase and rescue took a total of two minutes, after which Clackamas Fire District No. 1 extinguished the fire and paramedics tended to the injured motorist. She is identified as Nicole Renee Hudson, 40, a transient whose last known address was in Boring.

Hudson was transported to a Portland hospital, where she’s listed in good condition. And although as of Tuesday afternoon she was still hospitalized, she’d been booked at the Multnomah County Detention Center on a Clackamas County warrant for the following charges: methamphetamine possession, burglary, theft and criminal mischief.

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