Baker City man charged after wrong-way crash on I-84 near North Powder

A Baker City man is facing four criminal charges after police say he drove the wrong way on Interstate 84 near North Powder, hit a pickup and rolled into the median in a crash that could easily have turned fatal on one of Baker County’s busiest highways.

Devin Ray Buxton, 19, was driving a Toyota RAV4 east in the westbound lanes early Friday, May 15, when Oregon State Police first reported the vehicle near milepost 285 at about 12:14 a.m. The SUV later collided with a pickup near milepost 292, then rolled into the median. One driver was injured, though the injuries were not life-threatening, and a third vehicle sustained minor damage.

Buxton was taken by ambulance to Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City. State police said he showed indicators of impairment, and his blood alcohol level measured 0.31 at the hospital, nearly four times Oregon’s legal limit of 0.08. He now faces charges of driving under the influence of intoxicants, reckless driving, recklessly endangering another person and second-degree criminal mischief.

The crash highlights how little margin exists when a wrong-way driver enters the interstate. At 0.31, Buxton’s reported BAC was far above the level that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says sharply increases crash risk. NHTSA says about 32 people die each day in drunk-driving crashes in the United States, and it reported 11,904 alcohol-impaired-driving traffic deaths in 2024. The agency also says alcohol-impaired-driving fatalities account for about one-third of all U.S. motor-vehicle deaths.

Wrong-way crashes on Interstate 84 have become a recurring local safety concern. On Jan. 20, 2025, a commercial truck driver who had been drinking drove the wrong direction on I-84 near Baker City for about four miles. In another case, Lars Timothy Hansen, 19, of Boise, was arrested after an Interstate 84 crash near milepost 321 and later cited in Ontario on June 15, 2025, after a crash that left a Prius driver reporting major damage.

The Oregon Department of Transportation maintains ten years of crash data, and its crash reports are processed as information is compiled. But the central fact in this case is already clear: a single impaired driver on I-84 put multiple motorists at risk in a matter of minutes, and the outcome was far less severe than it could have been.