Fiery 60-Vehicle Pileup Leaves 2 Dead, Major Corridor Closed
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A second person has been confirmed dead a day after more than 60 vehicles smashed into one another in dense fog, injuring up to two dozen and becoming the second weather-related pileup to shut down a major trucking corridor in southeast Wyoming in less than a week.
Wreckage from Monday's fiery chain-reaction crash still was being removed from Interstate 80 on Tuesday morning, and engineers were assessing damage to the road from the fire.
Officials hoped to reopen a 100-mile stretch of highway Tuesday. The crash came four days after several pileups involving nearly 50 vehicles during a blinding snowstorm closed the busy interstate for two days.
The Wyoming Highway Patrol said the Monday crash started with two commercial trucks, one of which jackknifed in both westbound lanes about 18 miles west of Laramie.
Dozens of other vehicles piled into one another.
"I come out of the fog, and boom, there was the wreck," trucker Jeff Blair told the Laramie Boomerang newspaper.
Blair said a truck rear-ended his tractor-trailer, but he avoided any other damage by pulling into the median.
A 22,000-gallon tanker carrying a flammable liquid was among the vehicles that caught fire, but it appeared no hazardous materials leaked, said Bruce Burrows, spokesman for the Wyoming Department of Transportation.
An estimated 20 to 25 people were taken to an area hospital, three of whom were admitted and one of whom was transferred to a Denver hospital.
Alex Dragaytsev, 45, of Longueuil, Canada, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated vehicular homicide and was being held in jail, Highway Patrol Sgt. David Wagener said.
Citing the continuing investigation, Wagener declined to go into specifics about what evidence led to the charge.
Interstate 80 averages more than 6,000 trucks per day and was closed in both directions most of Monday. Eastbound lanes reopened about 11:30 p.m., but the westbound lanes still were closed Tuesday. While the interstate was shut down, traffic was rerouted to a two-lane highway that added about 20 miles to travelers' trips.
Fog caused another major crash in neighboring Colorado last week. A tour bus carrying Brooklyn-based performer Twin Shadow hit a tractor-trailer Friday on a foggy stretch of Interstate 70. The bus driver and drummer remain in serious condition.
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