One accident led to another and then another Friday afternoon that caused a major traffic stop on U.S. 287 near the State Highway 59 overpass.
The series of events began about 2:52 p.m. on Feb. 2 after an initial call out of a vehicle that had gone off into the median and lots of stuff had come out of the vehicle onto the highway. that vehicle’s driver was able to put onto the shoulder and was uninjured; however, the traffic coming up onto the scene had some issues.
The next incident involved a Volvo tractor trailer that was pulling another large truck for C1 Transportation of Illinois. The driver, Mircea A. Chira was slowing to stop for the wreck ahead of him, but another truck also pulling a truck reportedly failed to control its speed and struck the truck being pulled by unit one.
Unit three, driven by Arturo Felipe Samavieto, was a white Freightliner that was pulling another Freightliner for DES Express out of Dallas. When he struck unit two that was being pulled he lost control and flipped on its side. Samavieto was taken to Bowie Emergency Room by Bowie EMS.
Another accident occurred a short time later as Jeri Lee Robbins, 63, driving a Chevy Traverse was traveling north on U.S. 287. She was slowing as she approached the traffic stoppage for the other accidents. Salvador Guerrero Beltran, was driving a red Freightliner tractor trailer in the same direction and he began to slow down fast based on the police report causing the truck to slide sideways and strike the car.
In all these incident only one person received injuries. Traffic was stalled for about two hours as the roadway was cleared.