UPDATE 1:45 p.m.
The Woodbury County Sheriff says investigators have determined that a 1984 pickup truck driven by 40-year-old Mitchell Smith of Sioux City was traveling northbound, crossed the median and struck a southbound tractor-trailer driven by 68-year-old Wilbert Burmeister of Glenwood. Smith’s vehicle then was struck broadside by a second tractor-trailer driven by 35-year-old Jason Weatherton of Beresford, South Dakota.
Smith and a passenger, 30-year-old April Wayman of Sioux City were pulled out of the pickup by firefighters and transported to Mercy Medical for their injuries. No condition reports are available for Smith and Wayman.
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A multi-vehicle crash Wednesday morning on Interstate 29 south of Sergeant Bluff left two people seriously injured. Woodbury County deputy, Doug Boetger, says it started with a pickup that for unknown reasons was going the wrong way on the interstate. “It attempted to get back up onto the interstate in the southbound. In doing so, it pulled up in front of three semis,” Boetger explains. “It struck one semi in the rear trailer axle and then kind of spun in front of a second semi that basically took it head on between the box and the cab — which imbedded the pickup onto the semi.”
A third semi was bearing down on the wreck and the driver had to take evasive action. “And managed to miss both of the other semis, but clipped a couple of trees. It was off the road for probably a hundred and fifty yards or so before it came to rest,” Boetger says.
The occupants of the pickup had to be pulled out of the tangled pickup and semi. “Two people in the pickup were extricated by Salix and Sergeant Bluff Fire Rescue. They were transported to Mercy Medical Center (Sioux City) with serious injuries,” Boetger says. The drivers of the three semis were not injured. The names of the people in the pickup are not yet available.
(Reporting by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)