Ice covered road leads to rollover sending 1 to hospital

Stock Photo, St. George News

ST. GEORGE — One person was transported to the hospital following a single vehicle rollover Friday morning on Arizona Route 389 near Colorado City, Arizona. Icy road conditions may have contributed to the crash, authorities said.

A Jeep sits in the middle of  Arizona state Route 389 Friday after rolling over. Occupants at the side of the road are waiting for authorities to arrive. Colorado City, Arizona, Jan. 6, 2016 | Photo courtesy of Michael DeMille, St. George News
A Jeep sits in the middle of Arizona state Route 389 Friday after rolling over. Occupants at the side of the road are waiting for authorities to arrive. Colorado City, Arizona, Jan. 6, 2016 | Photo courtesy of Michael DeMille, St. George News

Arizona Department of Public Safety officers and Hildale/Colorado City firefighters who responded to the 9 a.m. rollover found a Jeep SUV upside down in the middle of the westbound lane with the car’s two occupants waiting for help nearby.

Both occupants were able to get out of the vehicle on their own. The injured driver was transported by a Hildale/Colorado City Fire Department ambulance to Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George. Her passenger received minor injuries but accompanied the driver to the hospital.

An Arizona Highway Patrol trooper used a pickup truck to move the disabled SUV out of the middle of the roadway in order to open the westbound lane up for traffic.

Hildale/Colorado City Fire Chief Kevin Barlow said the driver of the SUV was heading west on SR-389 towards Hurricane and St. George. Just as she started driving up the hill near Cedar Ridge near mile marker 10 the woman’s vehicle spun out of control and slid into an embankment on the side of the roadway.

Upon impact the SUV flipped over, Barlow said, and landed upside down with the tires facing skyward.

“The roads were very icy Friday morning and once they started up that hill the vehicle started spinning, and that led to the rollover,” the chief said.

The car was rendered inoperable after the crash and was towed from the scene.

“Both were wearing their seat belts at the time of the crash,” Barlow said, “which certainly helped to reduce the level of injuries sustained.”

Troopers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Hildale/Colorado City Fire Department, and the Hildale/Colorado City Fire Department ambulance responded to the scene and tended to the injured.

According to the Arizona Department of Transportation’s 2015 Crash Facts report, there were more than 116,000 crashes injuring 53,500 people and killing another 895 in Arizona that year. Of those crashes, 2,600 were rollovers that killed 138 people and injured another 2,300.

In Mohave County, Arizona, there were 2,850 crashes that resulted in more than 1,300 injuries and 48 deaths, the report states. While rural crashes in Arizona accounted for just over 19 percent of all crashes in 2015, they accounted for nearly half of all fatal crashes in the state.

This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings.  

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1 Comment

  • Larry January 8, 2017 at 6:52 am

    Sliding off is one thing…Driving Fast Enough to Roll Your Vehicle on an Icy Road is not an accident…that is just stupid.

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