Citizens shine during accident

COEUR d'ALENE - It was a wife and mother's worst nightmare.

Mellisa Estrada watched Saturday evening as her family's vehicle was struck at an intersection, pushing the car carrying her husband and 3-year-old son off the road.

"It was horrible. Sheer panic set in. I freaked," Estrada said.

The Coeur d'Alene woman's child was not injured, but husband Humberto spent a night at Kootenai Medical Center, after being admitted with a severe concussion. A family friend in the passenger seat was treated for injuries and released.

The driver of the SUV that struck her family's mini-van at the intersection of 15th Street and Dalton Avenue was arrested at the scene for driving while drunk.

Scott Allen Hicks, 45, of Spokane Valley was in custody at Kootenai County jail Tuesday, held on a $500 bond for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and a separate $150,000 bond for fleeing the scene of an accident and driving with a suspended license.

He refused to provide a breath sample and failed field sobriety tests at the scene of Saturday's accident. When officers asked Hicks if he knew where he was, he told them he thought he was in Liberty Lake.

Police records show Hicks has five prior DUI convictions, the most recent two in Washington, in October 2008 and again last September. Hicks had three DUI convictions in Georgia between 2001 and 2004.

At the time of his arrest Saturday, there was also an outstanding Kootenai County bench warrant from a 1997 DUI arrest, which could lead to another conviction for Hicks.

"I'm absolutely appalled that he was allowed behind the wheel," Estrada said.

She doesn't understand why Hicks isn't behind bars for his previous crimes.

Her family is still shaken by the crash, but Estrada said she learned something very important about the community she has lived in for the past 11 years.

"I read the paper, and I hear the horrible comments about how snooty citizens of Coeur d'Alene are, how people just drive by and don't help each other," Estrada said. "Well, that's just not true. Every person that was around when it happened stopped to help."

Estrada was driving a rented moving truck, following directly behind her family's vehicle when the collision occurred. They were returning home at 8:30 p.m. after helping a friend move.

Both cars stopped at the stop sign on 15th Street, and Estrada watched as her husband proceeded across Dalton Avenue through the intersection controlled by a four-way stop. Hicks' SUV traveling on Dalton failed to stop, hit her family's car, and pushed it onto the grass.

Hicks' vehicle kept going for about 300 feet before he jumped out and fled on foot.

"The people who lived in the houses came out and chased him trying to help," Estrada said.

A couple traveling in a vehicle behind Estrada stopped, the woman stayed with Estrada, and her husband joined the foot chase.

"The EMTs and fire department were there within like three minutes, their response time was phenomenal," she said.

Her little boy was terrified, and the responders took care of him "as if he were their own child."

"No one cared that my husband is Hispanic. That meant a lot to me," Estrada said. "This proved to me that no matter what people say about Coeur d'Alene, we do care about each other here."