{"id":46118,"date":"2021-06-24T00:40:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T06:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/crash-on-u-s-491-north-of-cortez-injures-driver\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:29:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:29:28","slug":"crash-on-u-s-491-north-of-cortez-injures-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/crash-on-u-s-491-north-of-cortez-injures-driver\/","title":{"rendered":"Crash on U.S. 491 north of Cortez injures driver"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=675e00f7-9ee4-581b-93d5-06f3c19ffd6c&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"720\" height=\"334\" alt=\"A pickup truck rear-ended a semi-trailer on U.S. 491 at mile marker 29.5 Wednesday afternoon. The driver of the pickup was transported to Southwest Memorial Hospital with serious injuries. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A pickup truck rear-ended a semi-trailer on U.S. 491 at mile marker 29.5 Wednesday afternoon. The driver of the pickup was transported to Southwest Memorial Hospital with serious injuries. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The driver a pickup truck hauling a trailer was seriously injured Wednesday afternoon after he slammed into the back of a semitrailer on U.S. Highway 491, according to the Colorado State Patrol.<\/p>\n<p>The crash occurred about 3:40 p.m. at mile marker 29.5 just north of County Road M.<\/p>\n<p>The highway was closed for more than an hour as the crash was investigated and vehicles and debris removed.<\/p>\n<p>The southbound semitrailer with an empty flatbed was making a left turn into a business when it was hit from behind by a southbound truck hauling a trailer, said Trooper James Proctor.<\/p>\n<p>The pickup truck was heavily damaged, and its air bags deployed.<\/p>\n<p>The male driver of the pickup truck was transported to Southwest Memorial Hospital with serious injuries, Proctor said. There were no passengers. The driver of the semi-trailer was uninjured.<\/p>\n<p>Witnesses said they heard a tremendous bang. The crash is under investigation, Proctor said.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=c3dedf44-2b14-55c5-b43e-8f4c6d4b0725&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"720\" height=\"473\" alt=\"U.S. 491 north of Cortez was closed down temporarily Wednesday afternoon due to a crash. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">U.S. 491 north of Cortez was closed down temporarily Wednesday afternoon due to a crash. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Northbound traffic was stopped and detoured temporarily at Road M, and backed-up southbound traffic was diverted onto County Road N.<\/p>\n<p>Multiple agencies responded to the crash, including the Colorado State Patrol, Lewis-Arriola Fire Department, Cortez Fire Protection District, Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Southwest Health System ambulance and Colorado Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>slams into back of semitrailer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,60,29,254,538],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-road-crash","tag-southwest-memorial-hospital"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46118","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=46118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86758,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46118\/revisions\/86758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46118"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}