The driver suspected of causing a three-vehicle crash north of Taft late Saturday night that injured seven people, including himself, was arrested Sunday morning, eight hours after the crash.
Francisco Rios-Ortiz, 27, of Bakersfield, was found walking in Dustin Acres at 7:15 a.m. The California Highway Patrol reported. He faces charges of felony hit and run and driving without a license.
Eight hours earlier, at 11:13 p.m., Rios-Ortiz was driving a 1999 Subaru Forester southbound on Highway 119 that rear-ended a Saturn sedan with four passengers that had stopped at a red light at Midway Road, the CHP said.
The impact knocked the Saturn into a compressed gas tanker making a left turn onto the highway from Midway Road.
All four people in the Saturn and Ortiz and both his passengers were injured.
The most seriously injured was two-year-old Alexis Ramirez of Taft, a passenger in the Saturn.
He was flown from the scene to Kern Medical Center in an air ambulance.
The driver of the Saturn, Felix Martinez, 32, of Taft, also suffered major injuries, the CHP said. He was taken by ambulance to Mercy Truxtun Hospital in Bakersfield. The other passengers in that vehicle, Casimira Ramirez, 32, and Belinda Ramirez, 4, suffered minor to moderate injuries. Both went to Kern Medical Center.
The two passengers in Rios-Ortiz' vehicle, Camilo Garcia, 43, and Cecelia Martinez, 53, both of Bakersfield, suffered moderate injuries and were taken to Mercy Southwest.
The driver of the taker, Suzette Hofer, 53, of Bakersfield, told officers she would seek her own treatment.
Rios-Ortiz was identified as the driver of the Subaru by his passengers, according to the CHP.
The area around the crash was searched on the ground by Kern County Sheriff's deputies and Taft Police and from the air by the Sheriff's helicopter, but Rios-Ortiz eluded capture.
The CHP received a report that Rios-Ortiz was in the Dustin Acres area about 7 a.m. Sunday from a citizen who knew him, according to a press release, and he was caught a few minutes later.
Rios-Ortiz is being held on $112,500 bail.
