{"id":68904,"date":"2016-09-24T17:27:18","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T23:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-in-fatal-crash-was-a-gold-star-father\/"},"modified":"2016-09-24T23:27:18","modified_gmt":"2016-09-24T23:27:18","slug":"man-in-fatal-crash-was-a-gold-star-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-in-fatal-crash-was-a-gold-star-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Man in fatal crash was a Gold Star father"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=2324d4da-ee21-4b38-8105-ad9b18c13b22&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"831\" height=\"467\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A 72-year-old Littleton man in town for Gold Star Parents Weekend died Friday in a head-on crash near the Durango-La Plata County Airport.<\/p>\n<p>The crash occurred about 7 p.m. on Colorado Highway 172 near mile marker 19, just west of County Road 309, which leads to the airport.<\/p>\n<p>A red 2002 Dodge pickup driven by David Lemon, 52, of Ignacio was heading west toward Durango when he crossed the center line and ran head-on into a white 2008 Toyota Rav4 being driven by John Vandegrift, said Capt. Adrian Driscoll with the Colorado State Patrol.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt looks like traffic slowed in front of him (Lemon), so he veered into on-coming traffic to avoid a rear-end and went head-on with Vandegrift,\u201d Driscoll said.<\/p>\n<p>Vandegrift died at the scene of the crash, said La Plata County Coroner Jan Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Lemon was cited with careless driving causing death.<\/p>\n<p>No drugs or alcohol are suspected, Driscoll said.<\/p>\n<p>Vandegrift was in town attending the Colorado Gold Star Parents Weekend for families who have lost a child since 2000 while serving in the military.<\/p>\n<p>Vandegrift\u2019s son, 1st Lt. Matthew Ryan Vandegrift, 28, died April 21, 2008, from injuries he suffered from a makeshift bomb that exploded in Basra, Iraq, according to a Denver Post <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2008\/04\/24\/jeffco-family-mourns-marine-son-killed-in-iraq\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, a <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2d878qV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">high school<\/a> near Austin, Texas, was named after Matthew Vandegrift, who grew up and went to school in the area.<\/p>\n<p>Both vehicles had passengers: A 9-year-old boy was in Lemon\u2019s truck, and John Vandegrift\u2019s wife, Mary Jane Vandegrift, 67, was in the Rav4. Neither passenger suffered life-threatening injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone involved wore seat belts except for Lemon, Driscoll said.<\/p>\n<p>The highway was closed from 7:40 to 9:24 p.m., according to a spokeswoman with the State Patrol in Denver.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:shane@durangoherald.com\">shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ignacio man cited with careless driving causing death<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,254],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-68904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-road-crash"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68904","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=68904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68904"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=68904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}