Drivers walk away from two-truck crash east of Lovell

A near head-on two-truck crash at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains Thursday afternoon created a dramatic scene of destruction and sparked a wildfire, but remarkably, both drivers walked away from the scene, though one was life-flighted to Billings with burns.

The call for response came to the Lovell Police Department at 1:15 p.m. on October 2 regarding a crash on U.S. 14A East, with fire. The crash took place 24 miles east of Lovell.

The investigating Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper was on leave this week, so some details were unavailable at press time, but according to Lovell Volunteer Fire Dept. captain Zach Blain, sheriff’s deputies were already on scene when he arrived and both occupants of the two semi-trucks were out of their rigs with a livestock truck on fire and blocking the highway.

The livestock truck owned by local rancher Brett Crosby was heading up the mountain with an empty trailer to take cattle off the summer range when another truck came around the corner in the eastbound Crosby truck’s lane and struck the Crosby truck with a nearly head-on glancing blow, Blain said.

The westbound/downhill truck, apparently out of control, jackknifed, with a flatbed trailer hauling a highway construction roller detaching and rolling well off the highway, while the truck/tractor ended up facing uphill. Intact initially, the Crosby tractor burned just off the edge of the highway.

Blain said the first responding fire truck cooled the Crosby truck so a North Big Horn Hospital ambulance could pass and reach the driver of the downhill truck, who was suffering from burns and sitting in the personal vehicle of a passerby. After an on-site evaluation by the EMS crew, the out-of-state driver, name unknown, was transported to North Big Horn Hospital in Lovell and life-flighted to a Billings Hospital, Blain said.

A second brushfire firetruck arrived and began battling a wildfire that had broken out off to the side of the highway and had begun spreading, Blain said. A tanker then arrived, and the firemen concentrated on putting the wildfire out to keep it from spreading further, Blain said.

Once the wildfire was contained, firemen concentrated on the two semis, applying foam to fully extinguish the flames. North Big Horn Search and Rescue responded along with the Sheriff’s Office, and after firemen cleared the scene between 3:30 and 4 p.m., the SAR members stayed on scene to provide traffic control until wreckers could arrive to remove the trucks, Blain said.

Cattle collision

Firemen returned to the Big Horn Mountains early Tuesday for a pickup vs. cattle collision some 27 miles east of Lovell atop the mountain. The call came in at 6:15 a.m., and Blain said the Wyoming Highway Patrol was on scene when firemen arrived.

Blain said cattle were in the middle of the highway likely due to snow that had blanketed the area, making walking off the highway difficult, and a pickup struck the cattle, killing two cows and a bull.

Firemen provided traffic control and pulled the bull off the highway, Blain said, and once the highway was no longer blocked, they returned to the firehall.