{"id":25151,"date":"2024-10-24T17:06:19","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T23:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/two-crashes-close-u-s-160-in-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:10:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:10:57","slug":"two-crashes-close-u-s-160-in-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/two-crashes-close-u-s-160-in-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Two crashes close U.S. 160 in Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Toyota RAV4 on the shoulder of U.S. Highway 160 after being involved in a three-vehicle crash just east of Cortez. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Two collisions on Wednesday killed one person on U.S. Highway 160 between Cortez and Durango and delayed traffic until at least 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

The first crash happened around 2:40 p.m. near the Durango West II subdivision. It involved an 18-wheel semitrailer and a Toyota Corolla and closed the highway for five hours, according to The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

One person died at the scene, and another was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition.<\/p>\n

The highway was closed at 3:05 p.m. and didn\u2019t reopen until 8 p.m. Traffic was detoured to Hesperus via County Road 141 and Colorado Highway 140.<\/p>\n

A couple of hours later, a dump truck, Toyota RAV4 and Ford F-150 pickup truck collided on the eastern edge of Cortez near the Montezuma County Fairgrounds around 5:09 p.m.<\/p>\n

\"Traffic
Traffic backed up Wednesday after a three-vehicle collision near the Montezuma County Fairgrounds on Oct. 23 at 6 p.m. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Cortez Fire Protection District cleans oil off the road on U.S. Highway 160 near the Montezuma County Fairgrounds east of Cortez. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

No serious injuries were reported, but one person was taken to the hospital, said Colorado State Patrol Trooper Sherri Mendez.<\/p>\n

Fuel and oil leaked from the dump truck, which prolonged the cleanup process and limited travel to a single alternating lane of traffic.<\/p>\n

The Cortez Fire Protection District poured a powder oil absorbent on the road and shoveled it off so the road wasn\u2019t slick when it reopened.<\/p>\n

Once the oil was cleaned, deputies directed traffic, alternating which lanes could go. Both lanes did not reopen until the vehicles were removed from the scene.<\/p>\n

After that second crash, the highway wasn\u2019t completely reopened until 8:29 p.m, Mendez said.<\/p>\n

A third crash was near milepost 107.<\/p>\n

It was called in at 7:18 p.m. and involved one vehicle and a deer, but no person was injured, Mendez said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dies in Durango crash, Cortez crash delays traffic for three hours<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,475,60,29,254],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-road-crash"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25151","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=25151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78817,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25151\/revisions\/78817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25151"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}