{"id":29111,"date":"2024-02-22T23:43:49","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T06:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/authorities-identify-drivers-involved-in-tuesdays-fatal-crash-south-of-durango\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:48:24","slug":"authorities-identify-drivers-involved-in-tuesdays-fatal-crash-south-of-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/authorities-identify-drivers-involved-in-tuesdays-fatal-crash-south-of-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"Authorities identify drivers involved in Tuesday\u2019s fatal crash south of Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Emergency
Emergency workers respond to a fatal crash Tuesday south of Durango on U.S. Highway 550 near mile marker 9. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Officials have identified the drivers involved in a fatal crash that occurred earlier this week south of Durango.<\/p>\n

The crash involving two flatbed trucks occurred shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday on U.S. Highway 550 near mile marker 9 and Sunnyside Elementary School.<\/p>\n

One driver died at the scene and another was seriously injured.<\/p>\n

The driver who died was identified as Richard Engstrom, 77, of Aztec, said La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith.<\/p>\n

He suffered blunt force trauma to the head, neck, chest and pelvis, she said.<\/p>\n

The Colorado State Patrol said Engstrom was traveling south on Highway 550 when he lost control of his Dodge Ram 3500 and skidded into the northbound lane. He was pulling a trailer, and the truck and trailer jackknifed as it went into oncoming traffic.<\/p>\n

Ergstrom, who was not wearing a seat belt, collided with another flatbed truck traveling northbound.<\/p>\n

That vehicle was being driven by Dewayne Gruber Jr., 22, of Shiprock, New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Gruber suffered serious injuries and was taken to Mercy Hospital. The CSP said on Tuesday<\/a> he was later flown to St. Mary\u2019s Regional Hospital in Grand Junction. Efforts to reach a hospital spokesperson for an update on Gruber\u2019s condition were not immediately successful Thursday.<\/p>\n

Neither drugs nor alcohol are suspected in the crash, said CSP Master Trooper Gary Cutler.<\/p>\n

The crash closed Highway 550 and disrupted the flow of traffic for more than five hours.<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A previous version of this story misspelled Richard Engstrom\u2019s last name. Incorrect information was given to the Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Accident closed U.S. Highway 550 for several hours near Sunnyside Elementary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,254,3279,1384],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-road-crash","tag-sunnyside-elementary","tag-u-s-highway-550"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29111","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=29111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80633,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29111\/revisions\/80633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29111"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}