{"id":47298,"date":"2021-04-19T23:43:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T05:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-woman-who-died-from-u-s-491-crash-is-identified\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:37:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:37:45","slug":"update-woman-who-died-from-u-s-491-crash-is-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-woman-who-died-from-u-s-491-crash-is-identified\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Woman who died from U.S. 491 crash is identified"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=f5e8e377-2fe5-4d9a-809c-a7091f141b3a&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The woman who died in a one-vehicle crash April 14 on U.S. Highway 491 has been identified as Britany N. Montoya, 32, of Georgetown, Texas, according to the Colorado State Patrol.<\/p>\n<p>Three other people were injured in the crash, which occurred south of Dove Creek at mile maker 58 about 9:40 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>The 2005 Chevy Malibu with Utah license plates was southbound on U.S. 491 when it went off the west shoulder, hit a tree then hit a barbed wire fence and a tree stump, said Trooper Josh Lewis.<\/p>\n<p>Driver fatigue is suspected as a contributing factor for the crash, he said.<\/p>\n<p>The driver, Aaron Ochoa, 29, was charged with suspected careless driving causing death, two charges of careless driving causing injury, driving without insurance, and driving without a seatbelt.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the injured passengers were children. A six year-old male suffered serious injuries, Lewis said, and was buckled in a car booster seat.<\/p>\n<p>A nine-year old sustained moderate injuries and was using a seatbelt.<\/p>\n<p>Ochoa was also injured. All victims were taken to Southwest Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Montoya was flown from the crash scene by a Flight for Life helicopter, and later died from her injuries. All four occupants reportedly were from Georgetown, Texas.<\/p>\n<p>The crash occurred 3 miles south of Dove Creek. Traffic was initially allowed through on an alternating lane basis, according to the preliminary report.<\/p>\n<p>The highway was then closed around 10:30 a.m. to allow for the helicopter to land and transport the injured female.<\/p>\n<p>It reopened about 11:45 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a terrible wreck, the vehicle was torn apart,\u201d said Judy Johnson, a traveler who waited for the highway to reopen.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\">jmimiaga @the-journal.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>injured; driver faces multiple charges<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[94,21,255,837,80,13,28,29,254,538],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-cortez","tag-death-and-dying","tag-dolores-county","tag-dove-creek","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","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\/47298","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=47298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87156,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47298\/revisions\/87156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47298"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}