{"id":23255,"date":"2025-03-06T21:26:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T04:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/distracted-driving-blamed-for-u-s-highway-550-crash-that-sent-three-to-hospital-csp-says\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:31:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:31:48","slug":"distracted-driving-blamed-for-u-s-highway-550-crash-that-sent-three-to-hospital-csp-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/distracted-driving-blamed-for-u-s-highway-550-crash-that-sent-three-to-hospital-csp-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Distracted driving blamed for U.S. Highway 550 crash that sent three to hospital, CSP says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango Fire Protection District emergency personnel work to extricate the driver in a Jeep SUV after colliding with a U-Haul truck on Wednesday on U.S. Highway 550 four miles south of Purgatory Resort. A Flight For Life helicopter sits on the road waiting to transport him to Mercy Hospital. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A serious crash that closed U.S. Highway 550 south of Purgatory Resort for almost four hours Wednesday and sent three to the hospital was caused by distracted driving, Colorado State Patrol says.<\/p>\n

A Jeep Liberty SUV traveling south drifted out of its lane near milepost 45 and collided head-on, driver\u2019s side to driver\u2019s side, at highway speeds with a Ford U-Haul box truck headed north.<\/p>\n

It took Durango Fire Protection District personnel almost two hours to extricate the driver of the Jeep, a 33-year-old man from Montrose. He was taken in a Flight For Life helicopter to Mercy Hospital with serious injuries and was later flown to Denver for treatment, CSP Capt. Angela DeGuelle said.<\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango Fire Protection District emergency personnel use two Jaws of Life to extricate the driver in a Jeep SUV that collided with a U-Haul truck Wednesday on U.S. Highway 550, 4 miles south of Purgatory Resort. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The driver of the U-Haul, a 29-year-old man from Durango, was taken to Mercy by ambulance and was later flown to another hospital for treatment. His passenger, a 28-year-old man from Bayfield, was taken to the hospital in a private vehicle with minor injuries and later released.<\/p>\n

The driver of the Jeep was cited in the incident, DeGuelle said.<\/p>\n

Herb Navarro was headed north on a ski trip when he came across the scene not long after it happened, before emergency personnel arrived. Both vehicles were on their sides, a small fire had started in the Jeep, and the driver was pinned inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlame was coming out the middle of the engine but it was also coming out the very bottom (of the vehicle),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He used an extinguisher in his truck to knock down most of the flames. Firefighters put out the rest upon arrival. The driver, who suffered serious injuries from the crash, was not harmed by the fire, DFPD Battalion Chief Jim Anderson said.<\/p>\n

The passenger of the U-Haul self-extricated from the vehicle, and firefighters helped the driver exit by removing the windshield. Extricating the Jeep\u2019s driver was more complicated, Anderson said.<\/p>\n

When cars sustain a front-end impact, their bodies crumple, he explained, and the engine can get shoved backward. Metal, plastic, consoles and other material in front of the vehicle compacted tightly around the driver\u2019s legs upon impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looked like his legs were shrink-wrapped,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango Fire Protection District emergency personnel and the Flight For Life crew take the driver of a Jeep SUV to the helicopter. The Jeep collided with a U-Haul truck Wednesday on U.S. Highway 550, 4 miles south of Purgatory Resort. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Every time rescuers tried to remove a piece of material, it shifted pressure onto the trapped driver from another angle. Ultimately, firefighters cut a hole through the bottom of the vehicle and were able to relieve the pressure from that angle. The driver was cut out of his pinned boots as rescuers extricated him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes to show that when you\u2019re driving, your job is to drive,\u201d DeGuelle said. \u201cThe moment you take your eyes off the road is when bad things can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The entire front end of a southbound Jeep Liberty compacted around the lower limbs of the driver after he drifted out of his lane Wednesday and collided with a northbound U-Haul box truck. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The technology in newer vehicles \u2013 effective air bags and seat belts chief among them \u2013 contributed to the survivability of the crash, Anderson said. The fact that everyone was wearing seat belts prevented them from being ejected, which is often a contributing factor in fatal crashes, according to DeGuelle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say this guy also got lucky,\u201d Anderson added.<\/p>\n

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

Southbound Jeep drifted out of lane, collided with U-Haul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1480,28,254,1384],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango-fire-protection-district","tag-headlines","tag-road-crash","tag-u-s-highway-550"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23255","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=23255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78038,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23255\/revisions\/78038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23255"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}