By BISHOP NASH
The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON – Three people were charged after a driver overdosed behind the wheel and crashed into a Huntington police cruiser leading a funeral procession along Hal Greer Boulevard on Saturday, Chief Joe Ciccarelli confirmed.
The crash happened around 3:40 p.m. when a green sedan ran a red light and struck the cruiser, driven by a Huntington Police Department reserve officer, at the intersection of Washington Boulevard, near Meadows Elementary School.
The officer was uninjured.
The driver, identified as a 44-year-old Hurricane, West Virginia, woman, was found uninjured from the crash but unconscious from a suspected heroin overdose, with a recent injection site on her right wrist, according to criminal complaints from Cabell County Magistrate Court.
The woman was revived with naloxone and told police she had injected heroin prior to driving. She refused medical attention and was arraigned in Cabell County Magistrate Court for misdemeanor DUI before being lodged in Western Regional Jail.
Two other passengers in the sedan were also cited for misdemeanors: one passenger for permitting DUI and another passenger on a city charge for possession of intoxicating substances, Ciccarelli said.
