Two die in high-speed crash
Two area men were killed Tuesday morning in a horrific crash when a pickup truck and an SUV hit head-on at highway speeds just four miles south of Coeur d’Alene where U.S. Highway 95 climbs over the Mica Grade.
“There are no marks of evasion. No skid marks,” Idaho State Police Trooper Jerry Stemm said, standing with other troopers and emergency workers amid a scene of tangled metal.
Firefighters from Coeur d’Alene spent about an hour extricating the bodies of the victims from the cars. By Tuesday evening, one driver had been identified as 32-year-old Matthew Broughton of Liberty Lake. The other man’s identity was being withheld because his family was at a funeral out of town, Stemm said.
Autopsies are scheduled today in Spokane for both drivers, but Stemm said early indications make it appear the driver of the northbound pickup truck may have suffered a medical problem that may have caused his truck to veer into the oncoming lanes and strike Broughton’s SUV.
The pickup, driven by a 56-year-old Worley man, came to rest on its passenger side with the engine compartment crunched into the driver’s space. It was the same with the SUV, which was launched by the force of the impact, coming to rest atop the concrete jersey barriers protecting drivers from a steep dropoff to the west.
Highway 95 is three lanes wide where the wreck occurred, two lanes going uphill and one down. The pickup was headed downhill.
Stemm said the sunny morning, dry road and extra lane make this sort of accident rare. The road conditions and the previous medical history of the pickup truck’s driver brought troopers to the preliminary conclusion that a sudden medical problem may have caused the crash.
“We will know more after tomorrow, but we think that is a possibility. He had a history of heart problems,” Stemm said.
The crash brings the unofficial death toll to seven this year on segments of Highway 95 in North Idaho and comes a day after a Spokane teenager passing on the highway 15 miles south of Coeur d’Alene caused a four-car wreck that injured three people.