I-25 near Mead back open after woman killed in crash with semi hauling excavator
A stretch of Interstate 25 near Mead was cleared for normal traffic on Tuesday morning after a 32-year-old woman was killed in a crash involving an excavator on Monday evening. A child was also seriously hurt in the crash as well and taken to the hospital to treat unknown injuries.
According to Colorado State Patrol, a semi-truck was carrying the excavator and another vehicle and ended up crashing into the overpass on I-25 northbound at the Mead exit. This ended up involving a 2011 white Honda SUV being driven by a woman with a juvenile passenger. The woman was killed and the juvenile was injured.
Just after 7 p.m. Monday, the interstate was backed up for miles in both directions and the backup lasted into the nighttime.
On Monday, there was no word whether there would be charges related to the crash.
This crash also caused significant road and bridge damage at the Mead exit on I-25.
"Each crew is out there right now making sure if the bridge is going to be safe, and really looking to make sure that, not only is it safe to drive over, but it's safe to drive under," said Jared Fiel, CDOT regional communications manager. "What they're looking at right now, they're going to be looking at that probably for a while because this is obviously a pretty important piece of infrastructure, so we're going to make sure that everything is safe first before we do anything."
This stretch of I-25 has been under construction to expand lanes for about a year to date. It's a project that extends from the Mead area to Fort Collins. Around 100,000 vehicles make trips past the area of the crash daily on I-25.