Driver charged with going wrong way through HRBT tube

Police said a 21-year-old Hampton woman drove the wrong way on Interstate 64 and into the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel on Thursday night on the Peninsula, hitting four cars and bringing general chaos to the region's most traveled road.

Police charged Charon Spruce, 21, with reckless driving, felony hit-and-run and driving under the influence of alcohol.

The journey apparently began when a Ford Escape drove east onto the westbound lanes of Interstate 64 near the Hampton Roads Center Parkway with its headlights off, State Police Sgt. Michelle Cotten said.

It ended miles later when a trooper pulled the Escape over on the south island of the bridge-tunnel. By then the SUV had struck four vehicles, injuring one person, Cotten said. She did not know whether the crashes occurred inside the tunnel. Three were very minor, she said.

The wrong-way driver sparked a burst of 911 calls to Hampton dispatchers at 9:30 p.m. Eight callers reported the Escape between the Hampton Roads Center Parkway and Magruder Boulevard in two minutes, said Cpl. Paula Scheck, Police Department spokeswoman.

Dispatchers transferred the calls to Virginia State Police because the Escape was on the interstate, she said.

Spruce, of the 2000 block of Calverton Road in Hampton, was being held at Hampton City Jail on Friday afternoon, Scheck wrote in an e-mail.

Spruce is a senior at Hampton University, said an editor at the school newspaper The Hampton Script. Spruce has worked as the paper's public relations manager for two years, lifestyle editor Shawnta McMillon said.

On Dec. 30, a wrong-way driver crashed through barriers onto Interstate 264 West and struck another car head-on. Two people died in that fiery collision.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5555, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com