KS Highway Patrol reports three deadly wrecks on New Year’s Day; Wichitan among victims
Saturday was a deadly day on Kansas highways, with the state patrol reporting at least three fatal accidents including one that killed a Wichita woman, online crash reports show.
The crashes came as motorists grappled with a blast of frigid weather that covered much of the state with snow, ice and other wintry precipitation on New Year’s Day.
At 1:55 a.m., 20-year-old Platte City, Missouri, resident Ernesto Lopez rear-ended a Kansas Department of Transportation plow truck treating for slick conditions on southbound Interstate 435 near Leavenworth Road in Wyandotte County, KHP said in a crash report.
Lopez was driving a Chrysler Town and Country when for “an unknown reason” he slammed into the back of the truck “at highway speeds or greater,” the report says. He was killed in the collision. The plow truck driver had possible minor injuries.
Later in the day, around 4 p.m., the driver of a 1999 GMC Suburban lost control while traveling south on I-135 in McPherson County near Arrowhead Road and went into a ditch, where it spun and overturned. A 62-year-old Wichita woman, Mary E. Hall, was killed, and two of three other people in the SUV were hospitalized with minor injuries, the KHP said. Those who survived the crash — ages 36, 33 and 10 — are Wichita and McPherson residents.
In Osage County, a 48-year-old Osage City woman, Lesley Ann Berner, lost control of a 2001 GMC Yukon on U.S. Highway 56 near Road Z, drove into a ditch and rolled the SUV when she tried to correct her path back onto the roadway. That crash was reported at 5:28 p.m. Berner was alone in the vehicle at the time, the KHP said.
The KHP reported also seven other crashes Saturday that only involved injuries, while others that occurred statewide were handled by local authorities.
This story was originally published January 2, 2022 at 1:53 PM.
