BOISE -- Highway 16 has a history of being a dangerous and deadly stretch of road. And now there have been two head-on collisions in one week. The latest crash sent three people to the hospital, one of them with life-threatening injuries.
"A mistake, bad judgement, either way we could have a fatality. And this highway right here has a history of it," said Sgt. John Laraway with Ada County Sheriff's Office.
Just minutes before Tuesday's crash, we learned the driver of last week's head-on collision died from her injuries. And the collisions happened just six miles apart on Highway 16.
Officers say both crashes should serve as a wake-up call to drivers.
Even a 13-year veteran with the Ada County Sheriff's Office couldn't believe anyone could survive the impact of Tuesday morning's crash between a Chevy pickup and an Oldsmobile.
"It was rather surprising. When I turned the corner of the front of the hood and looked in there and actually saw somebody still sitting in there, I was pretty amazed. It was a lot of, it was tight confinement," said Laraway.
EMS had to extricate the adult male driver from the crushed metal. He was then air lifted to the hospital. The accident happened around 9:34 a.m. and closed the highway for about three-and-a-half hours.
Investigators say speed was a factor.
Just minutes before the crash, an officer on a motorcycle clocked the driver of the Oldsmobile going more than 70 miles an hour.
The officer was in the process of pulling onto the highway to pull over the driver when the head-on collision occurred.
"All he saw was the result which was a lot of plastic and metal being thrown around," said Laraway.
Laraway said the Oldsmobile passed a Jeep Wrangler and then tried to make a left-hand turn. He didn't make the turn, and slammed into the pickup truck head-on.
The pickup driver and a passenger in the Oldsmobile were taken to the hospital by ambulance with non-life threatening injuries
The collision is the second one in a week on Highway 16.
"We're trying to make people realize that their speed is important. Their decisions are important. And sometimes a bad decision like this can cause quite the accident," said Laraway.
The motorcycle officer who clocked the driver speeding was actually part of a saturation patrol on Highway 16 this week.
The Ada County Sheriff's Office said the patrol was in response to last week's head-on collision that killed one person.
The driver in last week’s crash on Highway 16 died Monday night in the hospital.
Forty-year-old Heidi Lund of Caldwell had been at St. Alphonsus since the crash on Nov. 3.
Police say Lund was driving northbound in the southbound lane when her truck hit another vehicle head-on.
Her passenger and a passenger in the other car were also injured.
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