Menu
Two die in accidents on icy roads
Two people were killed in two separate --but related -- accidents Friday after winter conditions turned area roads into ice-skating rinks.
The storm that struck last week caused literally hundreds of slide-offs and accidents on the interstate in Elmore County March 1 and 2, but Friday morning those poor road conditions turned deadly.
The fatal chain of events began at about 9 a.m. just beyond milepost 102 on I-84 when the driver of an eastbound semi-truck pulled over to the side of the road to report to his dispatcher that the road conditions were terrible, and that he needed to stop for a while until they cleared up.
But as he was completing his report to his dispatcher, a second semi lost control on the icy road, causing its trailer to swing wide, clipping the first semi's trailer, causing minor to moderate damage to the two trailers. The driver of the second semi then pulled his rig over to the side of the road about 600 yards from the point of initial impact with the first semi.
A few minutes later, at approximately 9:12 a.m., a 1998 GMC Sonoma pickup, also traveling eastbound on I-84, lost control on the icy interstate and slid sideways into the rear of the second semi's trailer, impacting on the driver's side, and killing the driver, 36-year-old Felipe Solis-Aguiloar, of Salt Lake City, virtually instantly.
A passenger in his vehicle, 20-year-old Samuel Martinon, of West Valley, Utah, suffered serious head and torso injuries in the accident. He was transported by LifeFlight to St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, where Monday he remained in a coma in intensive care.
Elmore County Sheriff's Office Deputy Michael Gelalia said it was due largely to the fast response and quick work of the Elmore County fire and rescue (extrication) team, and the subsequent work of the ambulance crew EMTs, that Martinon was able to survive at all.
Deputy Gelalia had one lane of the interstate shut down, and made several calls for help to the Idaho Department of Transportation to set up a reader sign that would divert traffic at Exit 99, but before they could arrive to do so, the line of stalled vehicles behind the accident resulted in a second fatal accident.
Traffic was at a standstill in the eastbound lanes a mile west of the first crash, at milepost 102, when just prior to 10:30 a.m., 18-year-old Lindsay Johnson of Boise, driving a red 1996 Geo Prizm, failed to stop for the stalled traffic ahead and ran under the back of another semi stopped at the back of the line. The top of the Prizm was sheared off. Johnson died on impact from decapitating injuries.
Officers are still trying to determine if Johnson was unable to stop on the icy roadway or was inattentive when she hit the semi.
Eastbound lanes of the interstate were closed until just after noon while Idaho State Police officers worked to clear the second fatal accident just over a mile from where the first one had occured 90 minutes earlier.
Deputy Gelalia, who had been called out along with almost every deputy the sheriff's office had to handle the multiple accidents and slide-offs Thursday and Friday (supported by almost every free ISP trooper from the Boise office as well), said drivers simply were driving too fast for conditions.
"While we were clearing the first accident," he said, traffic had been allowed to proceed in one eastbound lane after LifeFlight left the scene, and despite the obvious problems, "drivers were going by way too fast. We had several cars spin on the road" as they went past the first accident scene, "and both my partner and I nearly got hit" several times. "One even forced me to jump over the hood of my car" in order to prevent being struck, he said.
"It was crazy. Nobody was driving very safely" that morning, he said.
Officers who routinely work the interstate between Mountain Home and Hammett say that often while roads in Boise are bare and dry that the windblown stretch of roadway through Elmore County can be surprisingly icy. Snow drifts across the roadway, is packed down by traffic and then freezes, or melt-off later re-freezes as the cold wind blows across the road.
Motorists traveling at freeway speeds are suddenly surprised when road conditions change with little warning, ISP officials said, often triggering slide-offs and rollover accidents.
Deputies and ISP troopers were so busy rushing from one accident scene to another that day that Mountain Home Volunteer Fire Department crews, which had responded to the two fatal accidents, wound up doing traffic control duty at the double-accident fatality scenes, trying to slow cars down and direct them into the single lane that was still clear. They also reported seeing numerous spins and slide-offs as drivers hit their brakes too quickly when they came upon the accident scenes, or were distracted taking cell-phone pictures as they tried to drive by.
Sheriff's office officials said they received well over 100 reports of slide-offs and other minor accidents over the two main days of the winter storm last week, and estimate only "about a quarter" of all the incidents were even reported.
Friday's conditions on the roads were so bad the school district had a rare late opening for the schools, in order to give time for the roads to clear and school buses to inch along their routes.
Thursday's conditions were almost as bad. In fact, a major accident occured at almost the same spot that day as the fatalities that occurred the next day.
On March 1, at 7:54 a.m., a one vehicle rollover occurred eastbound on I-84 at mile marker 102.
Eun Park, 39, of Las Vegas, Nev., was traveling eastbound on I-84, on slick snow and ice covered roads, when she lost control of her 2000 Mitsubishi. The vehicle overturned and came to rest on its top. Park and her two passengers, Helena Yi, 46, and Hye Shin, 34, were transported via air ambulance and ground ambulance to St. Al's, although none of the injuries sustained were life-threatening. All occupants were wearing their seatbelts.
Most of the accidents that occurred last Thursday and Friday did not result in any significant injuries, although towing companies and body shops were swamped hauling damaged vehicles and repairing them.