Intoxicated trucker jailed for driving wrong way

A 49-year-old commercial truck driver who was drunk when he crashed into an oncoming car on Interstate 205 -- after driving the wrong way for 11 miles -- was sentenced to six months in jail Tuesday.

Kenneth Eugene Burgess, 49, pleaded guilty to third-degree assault, driving under the influence of intoxicants and reckless endangerment for the crash at about 4:30 a.m. March 18. The collision in the southbound lanes sent debris flying in the northbound lanes, closing all but one lane and causing hours of gridlock for thousands in that Monday morning commute.

Burgess slammed his semi-tractor and trailer into a 2002 red Honda Civic driven by Katherine Mary Emerson, then 24, of Vancouver. She suffered extensive bruising throughout her body.

She was driving to work at Southwest Airlines as a baggage handler.

Emerson spoke in Multnomah County Circuit Court Tuesday, saying she was out of work for two months, suffered enormous pain and endures flashbacks when she drives.

"Sometimes when I'm driving I'm so wrapped up in my hyper-vigilance that I forget to breathe," Emerson said.

Police believe Burgess started driving westbound in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 84 in Troutdale, then traveled north in the southbound lanes of I-205 before slamming into Emerson's car near the Washington border.

Dispatchers began receiving 9-1-1 calls at about 4:20 a.m. Police originally tried to pursue Burgess, but thought it was too dangerous because he was driving the wrong direction on the freeway. They twice tried to deploy spike strips, but were unsuccessful at stopping him before the crash.

Burgess blood alcohol level was .15 percent, well above the legal limit for driving of .08 percent.

Burgess was convicted in 1993 of drunken driving.

Burgess apologized to Emerson, the City of Portland and transportation officials for all the trouble he'd caused. He said he knows he has a problem with alcohol.

"Every day it goes through my mind, why?" Burgess said. "I still don't have that answer and it scares me very much."

Burgess could get out of jail early to enter inpatient alcohol treatment.

He will lose his commercial driver's license for life, and his personal driver's license for five years.

He will be on probation for three years. If he fails to abide by the terms of his probation, he faces about 1 1/2 years in prison.