Two killed, six injured when semi plows into slowed traffic along western Wisconsin freeway
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Updated: Oct. 25, 2:45 p.m.
Authorities say a semi that failed to slow for stopped traffic triggered a fiery pile-up crash that left two people dead and six others injured Monday evening along Interstate 94 in western Wisconsin.
The driver of that semi, and the driver of a pickup truck it hit, died from their injuries.
The Wisconsin State Patrol said the crash involving seven vehicles happened just after 5:30 p.m. in the westbound lanes at the Highway 128 exit, about 25 miles east of Hudson, Wis.
Authorities said traffic had “significantly slowed” due to construction and an associated lane closure.
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A semi “traveling at highway speed failed to identify the slowed traffic ahead of it,” the Patrol reported in a news release. The semi struck the pickup truck and a second semi. The chain-reaction crash involved four more vehicles, some of which caught fire.
The Patrol identified the two people who died as semi driver Zdzislaw Obodzinski, 76, of Palatine, Ill.; and pickup truck driver James Shearer, 45, of Hammond, Wis. The Patrol said the six other people hurt were treated and released.
The Highway 128 bridge across the freeway was closed for a time, as it was assessed for possible damage from the fire.
It was the second multiple-fatality crash involving a semi on freeways in the region in the past few days.
On Saturday in Minnesota, two women died when their eastbound SUV was struck by two tires that broke off a semi traveling west on Interstate 94 at Highway 241 in St. Michael, northwest of the Twin Cities.