Driver, 19, unhurt when car crashes off I-5, stops inches from Bellingham house

A car came within inches of plowing into a Bellingham duplex Monday evening, Jan. 12, when a 19-year-old driver crashed off a steep embankment along Interstate 5.

Spencer Strickland, 19, of Bellingham, said his ’98 Volvo was going about 70 mph north on the freeway around 5:10 p.m. when another car — doing about 45 mph, he estimated — merged in front of him at the King Street on-ramp. Strickland slammed on his brakes and lost control, he said. His car went off the freeway to the right, spinning roughly 60 feet downhill through thick blackberry bushes, through a chain-link fence and into a tiny backyard at 932 York Street. Another foot further, and the Volvo would’ve been in the wall.