Two people died after trucker rolled into the Interstate median near Wamsutter, Wyoming early Monday morning and slammed into a tow truck and a car being towed.
At about 3:10 Monday morning, a 1995 Kenworth truck was headed west on Interstate 80 when the driver, Edgar F. Echeverria, 45, of Texas, lost control of the truck, according to a Monday statement by the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
Echeverria started to leave the road to the right, then overcorrected, causing the truck to overturn and enter the median. There it collided with a tow truck helping a car recover from a previous slide off, the Highway Patrol said.
The agency is investigating Echeverrias speed as too fast for conditions, as a contributing factor in the crash.
Echeverria was not wearing a seatbelt and died in the crash.
The tow truck driver, 45-year-old Kirby Lugg of Wamsutter, Wyoming, also died, succumbing to his injuries at the Memorial Hospital of Carbon County, the statement said.
Authorities took the driver of the car, whom Lugg was helping, to the same hospital for crash injuries.
These mark the 34th Wyoming roadway fatality for 2023 so far, the statement said, which nearly doubles last years April 3 figure of 18 fatalities. There were 23 fatalities by this time in 2021 and 14 by this time in 2020.
