Sooke RCMP say the driver who crashed into a tire store Monday afternoon, seriously injuring one of its employees, was fleeing police, who had pulled her over for impaired driving minutes earlier.
Police later determined the woman was three times over the legal limit for blood alcohol.
The driver sped down Otter Point Road about 90 metres until she swerved off the road and slammed into the parking lot of Dumont Tire near Ayres Road.
The vehicle hit a parked car, spinning it around 180 degrees and sending 43-year-old employee Mike Connor, who was standing by the parked car, flying through the air, according to manager Dennis Westendale.
Connor was left bleeding from the head and was rushed to Victoria General Hospital, where he is currently in stable condition.
"He's doing fine," his mother Maureen Connor, 71, said as she prepared to visit him yesterday in hospital.
"It could have been worse."
She said her son -- who was also hit by a drunk driver 20 years ago while driving on Otter Point Road -- has a bad concussion and broken ribs and required stitches on his face and forehead.
The out-of-control driver also smashed into four cars, which police estimate caused at least $15,000 in damage.
RCMP received a call Monday morning from someone who said a 40-year-old Sooke woman had taken a car without the owner's consent and was driving drunk.
Five minutes later, police spotted the blue Toyota Solara convertible on Sooke Road. The officer tried to stop the car on Otter Point Road at Eustace Road just after 11 a.m.
The woman pulled over briefly, but just as the officer was getting out of his vehicle, she fled the scene and eventually crashed into the tire store.
The woman faces charges of dangerous driving causing bodily harm, impaired driving causing bodily harm, driving with a blood-alcohol level over the legal limit, taking a car without the owner's consent and failing to stop for police.
She was released and is scheduled to appear in court June 3.
Click on the blue markers of the interactive map, to see key points in the crash incident. There is a link to the bottom of the map to a larger version.
