Duke Keltner was driving his girlfriend to lunch on 132nd Street on Aug. 9 when he said he spotted a green Pontiac mini-van pull out in front of him, headed the wrong way and straight at his Jeep Cherokee.

“She pulled out and came over to the wrong side of the road, right in front of Juanita High School,” he said.

After dodging the wrong-way vehicle headed eastbound, Keltner said he felt he had to do something. What followed next could be described as an act of selfless heroism or a witness that crossed the line and put the lives of himself and his passenger in danger.

According to Keltner, he made a u-turn and followed the driver, an older woman, as she sped through red lights and haphazardly ran over curbs and sidewalks for nearly two miles. Keltner, who asked his girlfriend to call 911, continued to pursue the woman through the red lights and pulled along side her, telling her to pull over.

“She looked at me kind of baffled, like she didn’t know what was going on,” he said.

Police reports say about 10 minutes into the chase the woman crashed into two yellow cement bollards protecting a county fire hydrant in the Kirkland Heights area. Keltner said he jumped out of his vehicle and ran over to see if he could help, but was surprised when she suddenly tried to reverse out. He opened the car door, shifted the automatic transmission to park and pulled out the keys.

“She tried to reassure me her driving was fine the entire way,” Keltner said.

The woman, who was not identified by the King County Sheriff’s Office, was said to be in her 70s and lived nearby. Keltner speculated she was suffering from a medical condition that led to her reckless driving and the accident. The woman reportedly was transported by ambulance to an area hospital.

“I would think that he did the right thing,” said Keltner’s mother, Terri. Coincidentally, she took the same actions in a wrong-way driver accident in Orange County, Calif. in the 1990s involving Duke, then just a 3-year-old. According to Terri, the driver in that accident was later arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.

“I did the same thing. (A woman) side-swiped my car,” she said.

When asked if the accident had any affect on her son’s actions, she doubted it.

“That’s just Duke,” Terri said. “If he sees something wrong, he goes and finds out about it.”

On the other hand, Kirkland Police aren’t so sure “finding out about it” is the best course of action.

Kirkland Police Traffic Lt. Brad Gilmore said that while citizen witnesses are an invaluable tool in crime prevention and reporting, the actual enforcement of law should be left to the police department.

With the advent of personal cell phones and improved mobile communication technology used by police, reaction times between the report of a crime and response are improving. But Gilmore said witnesses to a crime should look out for their own safety first.

“We always want the public to be the ‘Best Witness’ in these situations,” he said. “Anytime a person finds themselves in a situation that may be dangerous, call us and let us deal with it.”