Jessica Valdez, Mother of 3, Dies in Accident With a Forklift: Driver Suspected of DUI

A  27-year-old mother of three was killed on Tuesday, February 7th around 3:30 pm, when an SUV she was traveling in was struck by a forklift in a multi-vehicle crash on Aurora Ave. in North Seattle. Police received multiple 911 calls reporting the incident, and Aurora Ave. was blocked for hours due to the crash. 

The woman, identified as Jessica Valdez, was a passenger in a grey SUV that was traveling along Auora Ave. and 96th St., when a forklift entered Aurora Ave. from the west side and plowed into the SUV, sending it catapulting into the opposite lane where it slammed into a landscaping truck.

Valdez, along with the 27-year-old driver of the SUV and the 30-year-old driver of the landscaping truck, had to be extricated from their vehicles and transported to Harborview Medical Center. Tragically, Valdez died en route to the hospital due to injuries she sustained in the accident. Her 27-year-old companion miraculously survived and was in cricitcal condition at Harborview, and the driver of the landscaping truck was reportedly in stable condition.

The forklift operator was arrested at the scene of the accident, and officers suspected he was under the influence of alcohol. The man was taken by Seattle Police Department officers to the North Precinct to be evaluated, where he was booked into King County Jail for vehicular homicide.

Valdez’s family is heartbroken. She leaves behind three young children. “You don’t even know the pain that I have in my heart,” Jose Duran, her father, said. 

For more information and updates on this story, read the KOMO News Article.