UPDATE: Baby injured in wreck after car taken from convenience store; driver charged

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Huntington man is hospitalized after wrecking a car going the wrong way as he approached a busy bridge in Charleston at a few minutes before 10 a.m. Friday.

Charleston police said Bruce Hargis, 35, had taken the car from a gas pump at the Go-Mart in Kanawha City a few minutes earlier. There was a 7-month-old baby in the backseat. An unidentified woman was left behind at the gas station.

“What we are getting is that he suspected she had called police or somebody had called police, and he just took off. That’s when we got behind him,” said Tony Hazelett Chief of Detectives for the Charleston Police Department.

Police said they first thought the situation was a carjacking but have since learned it was not. The incident appears to be connected to something that happened in Mingo County where a criminal investigation is underway.

Deputies there said Hargis will be charged with malicious wounding and kidnapping after stabbing a man identified as Shane Nelson in the community of Dingess. He then allegedly forced the woman to drive him to Charleston.

Police said an officer spotted the vehicle Hargis was driving through Kanawha City moments after the emergency call was made. Hargis tried to get away and started going the wrong direction on the 35th Street Bridge when he struck an approaching motorist head-on.

“The vehicle evaded an officer and took a right on 35th Street which is the wrong direction. The vehicle sped up and hit an oncoming vehicle head on,” said Hazelett.

Hargis, the motorist and the 7-month-old baby were all injured. The baby suffered a minor head injury, but police confirm the child was strapped into a restrain seat in the back seat of the vehicle. Hargis and the other driver are both in stable condition.

Hargis has so far been charged with Fleeing DUI, DUI with minor, DUI causing Injury, One Way Violation, Red Light Violation, Failure to Maintain Control, Destruction of Property, Seatbelt Violation, and Petit Larceny.

He’s expected to be arraigned after he’s released from the hospital.