MERIDIAN -- A 21-year-old woman was taken to the hospital after exceeding 100 miles per hour and crashing on I-84 Wednesday morning.
It happened about 9:45 a.m. on the westbound side of the interstate.
KTVB Meteorologist Larry Gebert, who was also driving westbound saw the woman driving at "extremely high speeds" and passing other vehicles on the shoulder.
ISP says a motorcycle trooper spotted the speeding car and attempted to catch up. The trooper estimated the car was traveling at approximately 120 miles per hour.
Trooper Quinn Carmack said the driver apparently tried to take the exit to Ten Mile Road, but lost control and slammed into a light pole.
"I saw it hit the pole, then all I saw was dust, he said.
Hank Ortiz, a former Melba volunteer firefighter and witness to the crash, said the wreck scattered car parts across the road. At first, he thought Carmack had crashed as well because he lost sight of him in the cloud of dust.
Ortiz said he pulled over and saw a small coming from the front of the woman's wrecked car, near the radiator.
"It was starting to smoke, I mean, it was flaming," he said. "It was starting to do the black smoke which means there was a lot of rubber and other things involved burning."
He grabbed a fire extinguisher and doused the flames. Meridian firefighters also responded to the crash to extricate the woman and hose down the car.
"That's just instinct," Ortiz said. "I was a volunteer firefighter for 11 years, so i didn't think twice."
Officers say the woman was wearing her seatbelt and all airbags had deployed. She was transported to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise by ambulance with minor injuries.
"The speeds that the vehicle was going were pretty dangerous and it could have been a lot worse, so we're lucky that it ended the way it did," Carmack said.
The right lane was blocked as emergency responders worked to get the woman out of the car, but the scene has since been cleared. The woman's name has not been released.
