Suspected drunk driver hits ambulance and squad car in North St. Paul

An in­ebri­at­ed driv­er drift­ed across the cen­ter­line on an east met­ro high­way early Mon­day and side­swiped an am­bu­lance and squad car be­fore com­ing to rest in the mid­dle of the road.

The driv­er, iden­ti­fied as Jeff­rey Brad­ley Ray­mond, 27, of Maplewood, was south­bound on Hwy. 120 just north of County Road 14 in North St. Paul when he strayed across the line a­bout 2:20 a.m. A Maplewood Fire am­bu­lance and Maplewood Police squad head­ing north swerved onto the right shoul­der to avoid the way­ward Saturn Vue, but were un­suc­cess­ful, the State Patrol said.

"Al­co­hol was a fac­tor" in the col­li­sion, the pa­trol said.

Ray­mond's SUV blocked both lanes of Hwy. 120 for a short time af­ter the crash, the pa­trol said.

No one was hurt, but the am­bu­lance sus­tained mod­er­ate dam­age and the squad had mi­nor dam­age. Ray­mond's SUV had se­vere dam­age, the pa­trol said.