Man life-flighted after crash with loaded beet truck

Local law enforcement and EMS personnel responded to a trio of crashes in North Big Horn County this week, one of which resulted in a local man being flown to a Billings hospital.

On Monday at 4:07 p.m., emergency services crews responded to a two-vehicle collision southwest of the Oasis Junction near the intersection with Lane 13.  According to Big Horn County Sheriff Sgt. Jeff Angell, a line of cars were slowing as they traveled northeast due to a slow moving piece of farm equipment, including a car driven by JR Prosser. Prosser slowed, Angell said, but trailing him, a vehicle driven by Erik Ferbrache, as Ferbrache was momentarily distracted, did not slow enough and swerved at the last moment, clipping the right rear portion of the Prosser vehicle and taking the rear passenger side wheel off, “axle and all,” Angell noted. Both vehicles continued off the main lane of travel and into the borrow pit.

Neither driver was injured, but Ferbrache was cited for following too close.

Tuesday morning

Numerous emergency personnel responded to a major crash about two miles west of Cowley Tuesday at 7:15 a.m. According to Angell, a pickup driven by Dustin Olson was traveling southbound on U.S. 310 and pulled to the shoulder of the road. Wyoming Highway Patrol Public Relations Specialist Aaron Brown said the pickup may have pulled over while attempting to aid another truck on the southbound side of the road that had run out of gas.

Olson then decided to turn around and travel north and began to execute a U turn, which took his pickup directly into the path of a semi pulling a trailer full of sugar beets, which struck the Olson truck, knocking the box off the pickup and crushing in the cab of the truck, pinning Olson inside off the road on the northbound side of the highway. A passenger was also injured but was able to exit the truck through a window, Angell said.

A third vehicle, coming upon the scene, swerved to avoid debris in the highway and struck the left rear dual wheels of the beet trailer.

Lovell volunteer firemen, sheriff’s deputies and North Big Horn Ambulance EMTs used the Jaws of Life device to extricate Olson from the truck, and he was life-flighted via First Flight to St. Vincent Hospital.

Brown said as of Tuesday afternoon the crash was still an open investigation. Angell said Olson was severely injured, but he did not have an update at the time of the interview.

A third crash took place on U.S. Highway 14A West in the Oasis Junction to Byron area when a car collided with cows in the road. Details of that crash will follow in next week’s newspaper.