DWI charge in Deegan fatal wrong-way crash

A New Jersey man was killed early Saturday when a man suspected of being drunk drove the wrong way on the Major Deegan Expressway and smashed head-on into his car, police said.

The alleged wrong-way driver, Pablo Ovalles, 26, of Roslindale, Mass., was charged with driving while intoxicated. The fatal crash occurred shortly before 4 a.m. in the expressway's southbound lanes near the Fordham Road exit, police said.

Patrick Smith, 42, of Hackensack, N.J., was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital, police said.

Shortly before the collision, Ovalles was involved in a fender-bender in the University Heights section of the Bronx, police said.

Ovalles was driving a Cadillac Escalade east on Fordham Road when he struck a Lincoln Town Car's bumper about 3:45 a.m., causing minor damage. He sped away from that accident, police said, and turned north up an exit ramp onto the Major Deegan directly into southbound traffic.

Ovalles' Escalade SUV then collided with Smith's 2004 Infiniti, police said.

Ovalles was treated at the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center for minor injuries and then arrested, police said.