Wreck in the hinterland.
Last summer when JJ and I were exploring the North Platte River route the Oregon Trail emigrants used, we left the trail at Rawlins to head for Yellowstone. Along the way, in the hinterlands of Wyoming, we had to stop for a traffic accident. We found out wrecks in these areas are pretty bad situations.
We had just stopped for gas in Muddy Gap, planning on using Wyoming 789 to head for Jackson. While there, JJ overheard someone who'd just pulled in tell the clerk in the station to call the county rescue people, there was a wreck about two miles up the road. We decided to continue with our plan, since detouring would have added over 100 miles to our route. Surely it wouldn't be that big a delay. Wrong.
We got within 1/4 mile of the wreck, at around 2:30 PM, and had to pull over and park. So we shut things down and waited. Eventually JJ got out and talked to some of the other waiting people. Rumors were rampant. One thing they were agreed on was there was a fatality. The county (which is huge) got some ambulances there around 2:45 PM, then more waiting.
At about 3:40 PM a helicopter arrived and not long after that left for Casper.
Then the ambulances left for Rawlings.
Afterwards we were allowed to pass through.
One of the vehicles was a pickup truck
The other was a Jeep SUV
The cause was, as determined by the Wyoming State Highway Patrol, the southbound pickup crossed the centerline on a mild curve and struck the northbound Jeep, who tried to evade. The truck driver was a woman in her 30's who had two children. They survived with minor injuries. The Jeep was driven by a 70 year old retiree with a passenger, the driver's brother. They were on the way to a family reunion at Yellowstone. The driver was killed instantly, the brother had life threatening injuries.
We had just stopped for gas in Muddy Gap, planning on using Wyoming 789 to head for Jackson. While there, JJ overheard someone who'd just pulled in tell the clerk in the station to call the county rescue people, there was a wreck about two miles up the road. We decided to continue with our plan, since detouring would have added over 100 miles to our route. Surely it wouldn't be that big a delay. Wrong.
We got within 1/4 mile of the wreck, at around 2:30 PM, and had to pull over and park. So we shut things down and waited. Eventually JJ got out and talked to some of the other waiting people. Rumors were rampant. One thing they were agreed on was there was a fatality. The county (which is huge) got some ambulances there around 2:45 PM, then more waiting.
At about 3:40 PM a helicopter arrived and not long after that left for Casper.
Then the ambulances left for Rawlings.
Afterwards we were allowed to pass through.
One of the vehicles was a pickup truck
The other was a Jeep SUV
The cause was, as determined by the Wyoming State Highway Patrol, the southbound pickup crossed the centerline on a mild curve and struck the northbound Jeep, who tried to evade. The truck driver was a woman in her 30's who had two children. They survived with minor injuries. The Jeep was driven by a 70 year old retiree with a passenger, the driver's brother. They were on the way to a family reunion at Yellowstone. The driver was killed instantly, the brother had life threatening injuries.