{"id":41938,"date":"2022-02-28T19:09:41","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T02:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-who-died-after-crash-into-dolores-river-is-identified\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:04:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:04:21","slug":"man-who-died-after-crash-into-dolores-river-is-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-who-died-after-crash-into-dolores-river-is-identified\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who died after crash into Dolores River is identified"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robert
Robert Altimus Rust, 37, died after a car crash on Colorado Highway 145 early last week. (Courtesy Town of Mountain Village Police Department)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A missing man who died in a single-vehicle crash last week on Colorado Highway 145 has been identified by Montezuma County Coroner George Deavers.<\/p>\n

Robert Altimus Rust, 37, died after his 2016 Chevy Silverado pickup crashed into the Dolores River at mile marker 29 near the Taylor Creek turnoff northeast of Dolores.<\/p>\n

Rust, of Montrose, failed to negotiate a curve on the highway, jumped the guardrail and crashed down a steep embankment into the Dolores River, according to Colorado State Patrol Trooper Josh Lewis.<\/p>\n

Rust had been reported missing by co-workers on Feb. 23 after he did not report to his job with the town of Mountain Village.<\/p>\n

A notice was issued for him by the Mountain Village Police Department, and local agencies were searching for him, said Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 24, a San Miguel County search and rescue helicopter spotted the vehicle covered in more than a foot of fresh snow on the river in Montezuma County. Rust was found dead inside, Nowlin said. It was not clear when the crash occurred.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>

Nowlin said evidence suggested Rust survived the initial crash and had exited the vehicle before returning to it.<\/p>\n

The vehicle rolled at least once, and landed upright in the river. It is not known whether Rust was wearing a seat belt, according to the Colorado State Patrol. The cause of death is pending an autopsy, Deavers said.<\/p>\n

Rust\u2019s dog survived the crash and was found at the crash scene.<\/p>\n

The highway was closed for a few hours Thursday evening to allow for the investigation and to recover the vehicle.<\/p>\n

According to a Tweet from the Mountain Village Police Department, Rust was a plaza supervisor for Mountain Village in San Miguel County.<\/p>\n

The Dolores Volunteer Fire Department, Montezuma County Sheriff, Rico Fire Department, Colorado State Patrol, Southwest Health System ambulance, and the county coroner responded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

an employee of the town of Mountain Village<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,341,28,29,254],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-river","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-road-crash"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41938","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=41938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85157,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41938\/revisions\/85157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41938"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}