<\/p>\n
CAHONE \u2013 The driver of a 1997 Jeep Cherokee was killed Tuesday morning on U.S. Highway 491 just south of Cahone in a failed attempt to pass two semitrailers during a snowstorm.<\/p>\n
The Cherokee driver was identified as Franklin Grooms, 59, of Cortez on Wednesday by the Colorado State Patrol.<\/p>\n
The accident occurred about 10:09 a.m., said Colorado State Patrol Capt. Adrian Driscoll.<\/p>\n
The Cherokee was northbound and was attempting to pass two semitrailers when it was hit head-on by a Western Star semitrailer out of Utah at mile marker 51 on U.S. 491, Driscoll said.<\/p>\n
Grooms was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n
The driver of the semi, Silverio Ortiz-Arredondo, 54, of Vernal, Utah, suffered minor injuries and was treated and released. He was not cited, Driscoll said.<\/p>\n
Snow fell most of the day Tuesday, but Driscoll said it was not a major factor in the crash. Roads were wet and slick, and visibility was diminished during the snowstorm, according to the Dolores County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Besides the CSP, the Dolores County Sheriff\u2019s Office, the Dove Creek Volunteer Fire Department and the Dolores County Coroner\u2019s Office responded.<\/p>\n
Initially, traffic was blocked by the crash. Later Tuesday afternoon, traffic was confined to one lane of traffic alternating in both directions.<\/p>\n
A crew worked Tuesday evening to remove both vehicles, which left the road and tumbled down an embankment on the west side of the highway just south of Cahone.<\/p>\n
parmijo@durangoherald<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Patrol: Cherokee driver was attempting to pass two semis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,29,4242],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-transport-crash"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90474","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=90474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90474"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}