{"id":123974,"date":"2026-04-08T17:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coroner-identifies-man-killed-in-head-on-crash-south-of-ridgway\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T12:37:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T18:37:39","slug":"coroner-identifies-man-killed-in-head-on-crash-south-of-ridgway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coroner-identifies-man-killed-in-head-on-crash-south-of-ridgway\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner identifies man killed in head-on crash south of Ridgway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Police
Police officers conducted an hour and a half long operation and reportedly shut down travel on Main Avenue at the Siesta Motel in north Durango Saturday night after receiving gun and bomb threats at the business. The incident was later determined to be a swatting call \u2013 a dangerous and illegal prank made to purposely elicit a heavy police response for the caller\u2019s entertainment. (Durango Herald File)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A fatal head-on crash Monday night on U.S. Highway 550 south of Ridgway resulted in one person being killed and two seriously injured after one of the cars traveled out of its lane and collided with the other, Colorado State Patrol reported Tuesday in a news release.<\/p>\n

The three people in the car that traveled out of its lane were \u201cunrestrained\u201d in a vehicle without a backseat at the time of the crash, the release said.<\/p>\n

The crash, which involved a Dodge Caravan and a Ford F-350 hauling a trailer, occurred at 5:33 p.m. near milepost 103, according to an earlier news release from CSP.<\/p>\n

The driver of the Caravan was pronounced dead on scene.<\/p>\n

The Ouray County coroner identified him as Alixzander Thomsen, 34, of Ouray. His two passengers \u2013 a 12-year-old girl and a 74-year-old woman \u2013 were taken to area hospitals with serious injuries, the release said.<\/p>\n

The driver of the F-350 reported being uninjured, according to CSP.<\/p>\n

The Caravan was traveling westbound on Highway 550 when it \u201cdrifted over the center line into the eastbound lane,\u201d causing the F-350 to swerve to the right to avoid the collision, the release said. The Caravan\u2019s front left corner struck the F-350\u2019s front left corner, causing the F350\u2019s trailer to detach and skid into the ditch on the side of the road, and the F-350 came to a stop blocking the eastbound lane. The Dodge Caravan traveled off the westbound shoulder and came to rest in the ditch, the release said.<\/p>\n

\n

Breaking news alerts<\/h4>\n

For breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox, sign up at www.durangoherald.com\/newsletter-signup\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Highway 550 at milepost 103 was closed in both directions for more than five hours Monday, the release said.<\/p>\n

The crash remained under investigation by the Colorado State Patrol Vehicular Crimes Unit as of Tuesday, and further details on those involved, including the identities and conditions of the two people who sustained injuries, had not been released as of Wednesday.<\/p>\n

epond@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Driver, passengers were \u2018unrestrained\u2019 in vehicle, Colorado State Patrol says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[255,1820,28,254,6419,1384],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-123974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-death-and-dying","tag-dh-trueanthem","tag-headlines","tag-road-crash","tag-tj-trueanthem","tag-u-s-highway-550"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128441,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123974\/revisions\/128441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123974"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=123974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}