A 49-year-old Gardner man was arrested on Wednesday evening after causing a crash on Interstate 435 and running into a wooded area.
According to the Kansas Highway Patrol’s online crash log, the man was driving a 2014 Dodge Caravan northbound on I-435 just north of Shawnee Mission Parkway in Shawnee.
At approximately 6:25 p.m., the Highway Patrol says the man drove his van into the median of the interstate in an attempt to turn around.
A second minivan, a 2015 Chrysler Town & Country, was being driven south in the right lane of the interstate. This second van was being driven by a 48-year-old woman with her seven-year-old daughter, both from Kansas City, Kansas, according to investigators.
The crash log says that the man in the Dodge van entered the southbound lanes from the median, hitting the Chrysler van and causing both vehicles to stop on the shoulder.
Troopers say that’s when the Gardner man ran from the crash scene, west into a large and densely wooded area.
The woman and her child in the Dodge minivan both suffered minor injuries and were treated by firefighters and paramedics at the scene.
A Shawnee police officer using a drone later located the man who had been trying to hide in the woods.
According to recorded radio traffic, the man was taken into custody at 7:13 p.m., after being bitten by a Shawnee police K-9.
Radio traffic also indicated that Highway Patrol troopers found a handgun in the suspect’s van when it was searched.
The man, now in Kansas Highway Patrol custody, was taken by Johnson County Med-Act ambulance to an area hospital for treatment of minor injuries from the crash and the dog bite.
He was treated and released from the hospital and then booked into the Johnson County Adult Detention Center in Olathe just before midnight.
His first court appearance is scheduled for Thursday afternoon with a pending felony charge of DUI-aggravated battery, with bodily harm.
The Post does not identify suspects until they are formally charged.
