Eugene police said they recovered a dozen large tanks of nitrous oxide on Tuesday night after a car that had been reported in the road was found crashed down an embankment. Selma Alexis Hourigan was in the driver's seat when officers reached the wreck.
The car was first flagged for a welfare check on Chambers Street and West 29th Avenue, where it was parked in the middle of the road. Police said the same vehicle matched a car that had been seen hours earlier moving at two miles per hour, a speed so slow it suggests the driver was barely keeping the vehicle moving before the crash.
That detail gives the case its weight. Officers said they found Hourigan next to a 10 to 15 lb. nitrous oxide gas tank, with more than a dozen bottles on the floorboards and several more in the backseat. In addition to the tanks and bottles, police arrested her on charges of DUII, reckless driving, inhaling toxic vapor, and driving uninsured.
The welfare-check call turned into a crash investigation once officers tracked the car to a large tree down the embankment. That shift matters because it shows the scene was not treated as a simple roadside concern; police linked the stalled car, the later crash, and the nitrous oxide inside it as part of the same suspected DUII case.
What police have not said is what sent the vehicle from a slow crawl to a wreck against the tree. For now, the unanswered question sits with the rest of the evidence: a car in the road, a driver in the seat, and a load of nitrous oxide large enough to make the arrest more than an ordinary crash response.
