{"id":40421,"date":"2022-05-24T00:49:28","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T06:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/one-killed-five-injured-in-head-on-crash-near-hesperus-on-u-s-highway-160\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:55:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:55:25","slug":"one-killed-five-injured-in-head-on-crash-near-hesperus-on-u-s-highway-160","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/one-killed-five-injured-in-head-on-crash-near-hesperus-on-u-s-highway-160\/","title":{"rendered":"One killed, five injured in head-on crash near Hesperus on U.S. Highway 160"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Angela
Angela Rohwer, chief of the Pleasant View Fire Department, and her sister Heidi Rohwer, EMS captain of the fire department, were seriously injured Saturday morning in a crash on U.S. Highway 160 near Hesperus. Their mother, Judith Rohwer, died in the crash. (Courtesy of Pleasant View Fire Department)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

One person was killed and five others were seriously injured \u2013 including two members of the Pleasant View Fire Department \u2013 in a head-on crash Saturday morning near the top of Hesperus Hill on U.S. Highway 160 west of Durango.<\/p>\n

The crash occurred at 6:08 a.m. about a mile east of the Hesperus post office where a silver 2020 Ford F-150 traveling westbound drifted across the centerline and struck a white 2004 GMC Sierra that was pulling a trailer, said Sgt. Nathan Lyons, with the Colorado State Patrol.<\/p>\n

The crash occurred in a 65 mph zone, and law enforcement found no skid marks by either vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything came to rest almost precisely at the point of impact,\u201d Lyon said. \u201cThe size of the vehicles, pretty much as soon as it happened they stopped right where they were. \u2026 Nobody saw it (coming).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sierra was occupied by four people, all from Pleasant View, including Angela Rohwer, chief of the Pleasant View Fire Department, and Heidi Rohwer, EMS captain of the fire department.<\/p>\n

Their nephew, Zachery Berg, was also in the vehicle. So was the Rohwers\u2019 mother, Judith Rohwer, 73, who died in the crash, Lyons said.<\/p>\n

All four were headed to the Durango Farmers Market, where they sell various plants and seedlings from Rohwer\u2019s Farm<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\n\n

The F-150 was being driven by Lee Desmond, 54, of Shonto, Arizona, according to State Patrol.<\/p>\n

Desmond reportedly fell asleep and drifted into oncoming traffic, Lyons said. His brother, Roy Desmond, 46, of Page, Arizona, was in the passenger seat.<\/p>\n

The Desmond brothers were apparently returning home from a construction job in Casper, Wyoming, Lyon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this was their return trip on a Friday night, basically, to get home to Arizona,\u201d Lyon said. \u201cThey were driving straight through switching off when they were tired and somehow did not switch off this time and he (Lee Desmond) actually fell asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

All five who survived the crash were taken to Mercy Hospital in serious condition, according to an incident report.<\/p>\n

Angela Rohwer has been released from the hospital, but her sister, Heidi, was flown to a Denver-area hospital with \u201cextensive injuries,\u201d said Tracy Hartle, district administrator of the Pleasant View Fire Department.<\/p>\n

According to the Durango Farmers Market Facebook page, Heidi has undergone one surgery on her ankle and is awaiting at least two more surgeries on her hip and pelvis later this week.<\/p>\n

Berg was in \u201cstable\u201d condition Monday afternoon at Mercy, a hospital spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n

The Pleasant View Fire Department northwest of Cortez in Montezuma County is an all-volunteer organization, and the crash has rattled the membership and community, Hartle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeidi and Angela have been very active on our volunteer fire department,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re a very small, tight-knit community, and anytime something like this happens it really affects everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the Rohwer sisters \u201cradiate with joy,\u201d and their mother was a \u201cbundle of joy, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were just loved by all, and they were just wonderful people that everybody loves,\u201d Hartle said.<\/p>\n

Hospital records showed Lee Desmond was no longer at Mercy on Monday afternoon, but his brother remained in the hospital in \u201cstable\u201d condition, a spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n

Lee Desmond was served a summons on suspicion of careless driving causing death and three counts of careless driving causing injury, Lyon said.<\/p>\n

No drugs or alcohol are suspected.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, fatigue is a real thing,\u201d Lyon said.<\/p>\n

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

EMS captain of Pleasant View Fire Department suffered serious injuries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[255,1934,28,866,60,445,554,254,69],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-death-and-dying","tag-farmers-market","tag-headlines","tag-hesperus","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-pleasant-view","tag-road-crash","tag-u-s-highway-160"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40421","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=40421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84644,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40421\/revisions\/84644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40421"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}