{"id":37042,"date":"2022-11-30T19:34:38","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T02:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/collision-of-semitrailer-and-pickup-on-u-s-491-causes-injuries\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:35:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:35:24","slug":"collision-of-semitrailer-and-pickup-on-u-s-491-causes-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/collision-of-semitrailer-and-pickup-on-u-s-491-causes-injuries\/","title":{"rendered":"Collision of semitrailer and pickup on U.S. 491 causes injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=128787ad-3319-5157-b8e5-3ba8545f7917&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" alt=\"Blotter lights\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Blotter lights<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>A crash involving a semitrailer and a pickup truck Wednesday morning seriously injured one driver and temporarily closed U.S. Highway 491 north of Cortez.<\/p>\n<p>The crash occurred about 7:30 a.m. at the intersection of County Road N and the highway.<\/p>\n<p>The driver of a gray Ford F-150 traveling eastbound on Road N attempted to cross the highway and was struck by the northbound semitrailer, said Sgt. Nathan Lyons of the Colorado State Patrol.<\/p>\n<p>The driver of the pickup \u2013 a 20-year-old man from Cortez \u2013 was ejected from the vehicle and sustained severe injuries, Lyons said.<\/p>\n<p>He was transported to Southwest Memorial Hospital, then flown to St. Mary\u2019s Medical Center in Grand Junction. The man\u2019s identity has not been released. He was driving to work, Lyons said.<\/p>\n<p>The driver of the flatbed semitrailer braked in an attempt to avoid the crash, Lyons said. He was uninjured and was not at fault, Lyons said.<\/p>\n<p>The incident occurred near mile marker 31 and remains under investigation by the State Patrol. It is suspected that the pickup truck driver was not wearing a seat belt, Lyons said. All air bags deployed in the pickup. No drugs or alcohol were involved.<\/p>\n<p>The highway was closed in both directions from 7:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. Traffic was directed around the crash site via nearby county roads.<\/p>\n<p>Multiple agencies responded, including Colorado State Patrol, Cortez Fire Protection District, Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Southwest Health System ambulance and Colorado Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n<p>Lyons urged that drivers use caution on U.S. 491, which has many side roads as it passes through the county.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are some dangerous intersections,\u201d he said. \u201cI know people are aware, but accidents keep happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Highway closed at County Road N for two hours; man flown to St. Mary\u2019s Medical Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37042","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=37042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83539,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37042\/revisions\/83539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37042"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}