A western Iowa teenager is dead after a crash Wednesday night in Guthrie County. The Iowa State Patrol reports 17-year-old Zachary Meacham, of Guthrie Center, died at the scene of the crash that happened at around 7:10 p.m, north of Guthrie Center. The teen was not wearing a seat belt.
The patrol says Meacham was traveling north on Oak Avenue in a 1997 Chevy pickup truck, when for reasons unknown, he crashed the vehicle through a barricade set up in 2014, because a bridge over Brushy Creek had been removed. The pickup plunged over the edge of the missing bridge and crashed nose first into the creek below before coming to rest on its top, submerged in the water.
A passenger in the pickup was able to escape and run for help. When the pickup was turned over, it was determined Meacham was dead in the vehicle.
(Reporting by Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic)