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Crime & Safety

Driver Wasn't Cited in Fatal Accident at Highways 36 and 120, Alcohol Involved

A similar incident occurred in October of last year.

A 23-year-old North St. Paul woman was killed Thursday night when she was hit by a car while crossing Highway 36 at Century Avenue around 9:45 p.m., according to Minnesota State Patrol Public Information Officer Lt. Eric Roeske.

Alicia M. Galdick was pushing her 2-year-old son in a stroller, which was far enough ahead that the child was not hit, Roeske said. The child suffered non-life-threatening injuries, he said.

“A fraction of a second and the child would have been hit as well,” he said in a press conference Friday morning.

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Galdick had run out in the street against a red light, and there’s no indication why she didn’t wait for the light to change green, he said.

“According to one third party that was uninvolved in the crash,” he said, “she just ran out in front of the car as it approached the intersection.”

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State troopers on the scene detected alcohol in her system, however, they don’t know to what level she was impaired or what her blood alcohol concentration was, he said.

The child's name has not yet been released.

Galdick was with a group of pedestrians running north across the intersection, and she was struck by a vehicle heading east on the highway, according to the Minnesota State Patrol incident report.

The driver of the car, Raymond M. Muckala, 67, of Oakdale, has not been cited or ticketed in connection with the incident. A 53-year-old Stillwater woman was in Muckala's vehicle at the time of the crash. Roeske said there is no indication that Muckala did anything wrong.

A similar incident occurred around midnight on Oct. 16 last year. A 19-year-old Oakdale man was struck and killed when he was running north across Highway 36 at the same intersection by a driver traveling east who had a green light, according to the Minnesota State Patrol incident report.

Roeske said the State Patrol responds frequently to crashes at the intersection of Highway 36 and Highway 120 (Century Avenue), however, most of them involve someone not obeying the traffic signals.

“It is a busy intersection, but it has traffic lights and if motorists and pedestrians obey the traffic lights, we don’t have these things happen,” he said. “It really boils down to just obeying the traffic signals.”

The intersection was shut down Thursday night while police investigated the crash.

A friend of the family at the scene, Barb Triemert, said the Galdick and child lived in apartments near Dairy Queen, just north of the intersection, and they were walking home from the gas station across the highway.

"It's just one of those things you can't ever imagine happening," she said. "You go to the store and you're walking home, and next thing your life is gone."

Check back for updates on this story.

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