Misjudgement blamed for collision

A serious three-vehicle crash took place in Sundance on Wednesday morning involving a cattle trailer and a semi hauling a windmill blade. Despite the impact between the two large vehicles and the windmill blade colliding with the cab section of the semi’s pilot car, no injuries were reported to humans or animals.

According to Lieutenant Tim Boumeester, Wyoming Highway Patrol, a semi tractor trailer hauling cows was traveling eastbound on the I-90 service road at around 10:30 a.m. Meanwhile, an oversize load carrying a windmill blade was making a left turn into the Sundance Port of Entry, while the Ford F250 pickup truck acting as its pilot vehicle was to the rear of the oversize load, facing westbound.

“The driver of the cattle truck stated that he knew he needed to go to the Port of Entry but decided to bypass it,” says Boumeester. “As he approached the intersection, he stated that he saw the oversized load but he thought he could clear it.”

The cattle truck struck the windmill blade and caused it to overturn a quarter turn. According to Boumeester, this led to the windmill blade landing on the pickup truck, causing it to catch in fire.

First responders called to the scene included the Crook County Sheriff’s Office, Wyoming Highway Patrol, Sundance Police Department and personnel from the fire and EMS departments. The pilot vehicle was engulfed by the fire.

“No injuries were reported – everybody was checked out and everybody was good to go,” confirms Boumeester.

Clearing the scene took until 5 p.m. that evening. Until that time, the service road was closed as well as the I-90 westbound and eastbound off ramps at that exit.

One casualty of the crash was the windmill blade, which was in transit along with the two others that would eventually have been constructed into a single windmill.

“They were brand new blades that were being transported to Casper to their storage yards down there,” he says. “The other reason it took us a little longer to get the whole scene cleaned up was that…there were still approximately five or six more windmill blades that were coming that day and had already showed up. We had them parked on the service road and, after we had the crash scene cleaned, we got them through and into the Port of Entry for the night.”