By Shereen Siewert
Additional details have been released in an Aug. 24 crash that left a 31-year-old woman dead and a man severely injured.
Danielle Marie Dahlquist, of Wausau, was fatally injured in the crash, which happened at 1:46 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot of Kohl’s Department Store, 3600 Rib Mountain Drive. A crash report obtained by Wausau Pilot and Review shows Dahlquist was a passenger in a 2004 Toyota Avalon that struck several cars before overturning. The name of the driver has not been released.
Police say the Avalon was northbound at a high rate of speed on a two-way drive in the parking lot, which is shared with several nearby businesses along Rib Mountain Drive. For reasons that are not yet clear the vehicle left the lane of travel, glanced off the concrete and struck a tree, which produced minor damage to a legally parked vehicle in the lot. The Avalon then continued northbound, struck a tree, went airborne, overturned, struck a light pole and came to rest on its wheels facing a westerly direction, according to the crash report.
The Avalon also struck a second vehicle during the crash that was pushed into a third vehicle, police said.
Both Dahlquist ad the driver were ejected from the Avalon. Emergency crews were called within one minute of the crash and arrived on scene three minutes later. Both victims were transported by ambulance to Aspirus Wausau Hospital, where Dahlquist died a short time later.
According to the crash report the driver of the Avalon was operating the vehicle in an “aggressive, reckless manner,” though neither drugs nor alcohol are suspected in the crash. Blood tests, standard procedure in fatal crashes, were taken from the driver. Those results are pending.
Neither occupant was wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, police said.
The driver’s current condition has not been specified. The crash remains under investigation.
