The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

July 8, 2008

Patrol seeking car that left crash

Seven victims in Highway 14 accident identified

Dan Linehan

MANKATO — The State Patrol is searching for a vehicle that left the scene of the Saturday accident on Highway 14 that killed Patricia Raddatz, a 58-year-old Eagle Lake woman, and injured six others, Lt. Dan Hilligoss said.

A witness said the white, four-door car pulled onto Highway 14, prompting a vehicle behind them to swerve into the eastbound lanes, where it collided head on with another car heading eastbound.

“I don’t know if they even looked,” Dorothy Neis, a passenger in the car traveling eastbound, said of the unidentified white vehicle.

It happened quickly: “I remember I was opening up a piece of candy. I looked up, and it was just like that,” she said.

Neis was in pain Sunday evening, with a broken foot and a chest injury from the airbag, but had returned to her Morton home.

The accident occurred at about 6 p.m. Saturday on a stretch of highway near Nicollet.

The driver of the car traveling eastbound that was hit by the 2003 Town and Country minivan that swerved into the eastbound lane was Patricia’s husband, Mark Raddatz, 58. He was listed in satisfactory condition Sunday afternoon at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Their son, 34-year-old Eagle Lake resident Eric Raddatz, was listed in critical condition Sunday afternoon at Immanuel St. Joseph’s Hospital.

The other vehicle, a 2003 Town and Country minivan, in the head-on crash had four occupants, all from Morton.

Candice Berry, 53, the driver, was taken to ISJ with non-serious injuries. She was listed in fair condition Sunday afternoon.

Fifty-year-old Dorothy Neis and 11-year-old Thaddeus Neis were treated at ISJ and released.

Nine-year-old Dimitri Means was airlifted to North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale with head trauma and was listed in critical condition Sunday morning. The hospital did not return calls seeking a condition update.

The Free Press reported in Sunday’s edition a seventh person was injured, but that person was the driver of the unidentified vehicle, which was not hit.

This is how the patrol described the accident:

A white, four-door car was driving south on 510th Street and turned right onto the westbound lane of Highway 14.

A 2003 Chrysler Town and Country minivan was also traveling westbound and swerved into the eastbound lane to avoid hitting the first vehicle. At that point, it collided head-on with a 1997 Buick LeSabre sedan traveling eastbound.

Neither the driver of the unidentified white vehicle nor the car itself was identified, and Hilligoss said other law enforcement agencies have been asked to look for the vehicle.

“All I know is the car that pulled out is the one that caused it,” Dorothy Neis said.

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