The state of Wyoming just suffered one of its deadliest highway weekends with 8 deaths from 3 accidents, 2 on Interstate 80 and one on I-25.
The number of deaths rose with each accident, starting with a single death Friday night about 5:00 on I-25 north of Chugwater.
In it, a 49-year old Colorado man was killed in a rollover when the 15-year old driver of a pickup pulling a flatbed trailer lost control on the icy, snow-covered pavement. The driver and another 49-year old Coloradoan were hospitalized.
The second crash, about 2:15 Saturday morning near Lyman, saw two Missouri truck drivers die when their semi went off the freeway and the cab and sleeper compartment filled with snow, leading to suffocation.
The truck and the bodies of 39-year old Keith Koehler II and 40-year-old Tyler Judd weren’t discovered for about 3 hours because of darkness and the depth of the embankment.
Final accident occurred Sunday night a little before 6:00 on I-80 east of Rawlins began when a pickup going the wrong way in the westbound lanes hit a commercial truck and then a passenger car.
A second commercial truck swerved into the median to avoid the pickup, but exited into the eastbound lanes where it collided head-on with a second pickup and both immediately became engulfed in flames. The 5 occupants of the pickup all died.
An unspecified number of other individuals from the 3 other vehicles were taken to a nearby hospital with what were described as critical injuries. The wrong-way driver was arrested on suspicion of impairment with future charges expected.
The deadly weekend brought the number of traffic deaths so far this year to 12 compared to just 1 a year ago.