A tire blowout on a truck tractor pulling a semi-trailer traveling at highway speeds on I-20 was reported as the cause of a crash that killed two teens near Sweetwater Tuesday.
According to the Texas DPS, a 52-year-old truck driver, Richard Burton Weeks of Abilene, was westbound in a 2006 Peterbilt truck pulling a trailer when the left front tire of his truck blew out. That sent the truck veering out-of-control across the center median into the oncoming lanes of traffic.
Traveling east at the same time was 37-year-old Bernhard Peters of Lamesa in a 2005 Ford Excursion. Riding along with Peters were four passengers. DPS reports that the Peterbilt struck Peter’s Excursion, along with a 2011 Mercedes passenger car driven by Jose Juvenal Ramirez, 31, of El Paso. Peters had one passenger, 26-year-ol Marlene Garcia who DPS lists as hailing from Dunlap, Tennessee. Ramirez was injured and listed in stable condition at Rolling Plains Memorial Hospital in Sweetwater.
The impact of the Peterbilt killed two 17-year-olds in the Excursion.
DPS reported that Excursion passengers Steven Lee Wiebe, 17, of Seminole and Lydia Fehr Penner, also 17 and from Seminole were killed. Peters, the driver, was critically wounded. He was rushed to Hendrick Medical Center in Abilene.
DPS did not report any other serious injuries in the pileup.
Two more vehicles, a 2003 Ford F-250 pickup and a 2013 Chevrolet Cruze were damaged by the center cable system that the Peterbilt dragged across the oncoming eastbound lanes.
The crash happened six miles east of Sweetwater on I-20 at 9:36 a.m. Tuesday. The weather was cloudy but the roadway was dry, DPS reported.
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