Portland woman sentenced to nearly 7 years for drunk-driving crash that killed a Vancouver man

A Portland woman was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for a February drunken-driving crash that killed a Vancouver man.

Amy Gaudette, 44, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Clark County Superior Court to a charge of vehicular homicide. A judge ordered her license be revoked, court records show.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Gaudette was driving south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 shortly after midnight Feb. 3 when she hit a 1992 Honda Accord head on near the Mill Plain Boulevard exit.

Rescuers extricated the Honda’s driver, 67-year-old Stephen M. Wesley, in about 10 minutes, and he was taken to a hospital, the Vancouver Fire Department said. Wesley later died of his injuries at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center. Court records state he suffered a skull fracture and blunt-force trauma to the chest, among other injuries.

Minutes before the crash, a Washington State Patrol trooper reported seeing a wrong-way driver traveling west in the eastbound lanes of state Highway 500 near the St. Johns Boulevard exit, according to the affidavit.

When troopers arrived at the crash scene, they noted the odor of alcohol coming from Gaudette and that her eyes were watery and bloodshot and her speech was slurred, the affidavit states.

Police said Gaudette told them she had been drinking and recently fought with her boyfriend. She said she knew she was driving the wrong way on I-5 and could not cross the barrier to get to the correct side, court records say.

The preliminary breath test found she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.180. In Washington, a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 is considered evidence of drunken driving.