LONGMONT — A Monday morning crash at the intersection of Colo. Highway 119 and Turner Boulevard injured three men and sent two of them to local hospitals, police said.
The driver of a gray Dodge pickup was traveling west on Colo. 119 when he attempted to turn left onto Turner Boulevard around 9 a.m. Monday. He turned in front of a white moving truck heading east on the highway, and the two vehicles collided, State Patrol Trooper Scott Pucket said.
Paramedics took the pickup’s driver, Manuel James Lucero, 18, to Denver Health Medical Center, Pucket said. He was listed in fair condition Monday afternoon.
Emergency crews extricated Lucero’s passenger, 18-year-old John Peterman, from the wreckage and took him to Longmont United Hospital, Pucket said. Peterman was treated and released, a hospital spokesman said.
Lucero and Peterman were not wearing seat belts, according to Gary Fleshman, the driver of the moving truck.
“These guys would have been in a lot better shape if they had been wearing seat belts,” he said. “If I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt, I’d be 50 feet down the road, dead.”
Fleshman injured his right hand and knee in the accident but declined treatment from paramedics. He said he planned to go to a hospital later in the day.
The crash collapsed the front passenger side of the pickup, knocked out the windshield and twisted the vehicle’s frame. Soda cans and pieces of the dashboard lay on the floor and seat of the pickup’s cab.
The impact dented the front of the moving truck and cracked its windshield.
Firefighters dumped buckets of sand under the two vehicles to soak up spilled gasoline.
The accident snarled traffic in the eastbound lanes of Colo. 119 until emergency crews moved the damaged vehicles around 10 a.m.
Fleshman said he was glad the only freight he was hauling Monday morning was a filing cabinet.
“If I had been fully loaded with paper, nobody would have survived,” he said.
The driver of the pickup will likely be ticketed for careless driving causing injury, Pucket said.
Brad Turner can be reached at 720-494-5420, or by e-mail at
bturner@times-call.com.
l
l
l
l 