NEW LONDON, MN — One person has died after a head-on crash with a tractor-trailer in New London, Minnesota that happened on Thursday, April 17th, 2014, according to the news report from WCTRIB.
Officials with details of the crash investigation have said that 88-year-old Burton Van Ort was killed when the vehicle he was driving and a tractor-trailer collided head-on for reasons currently under investigation while driving on Highway 23 near the intersection with Kandiyohi County Road 40.
Scene of the Accident
Burton Van Ort was taken by EMS personnel to a nearby hospital where he died a number of days after his arrival.
Officials from the Minnesota State Patrol were helping local authorities with the crash investigation.
Commentary:
The news article suggests that the victim may have crossed into oncoming traffic, but I have handled cases just like this where the news report was completely incorrect. Many of these news summaries are based on police reports and press conferences, but the fact that most forget is that police officers are enforcers of the law and not trained accident investigators. The authorities that took this report may have had another accident to rush off to, or another problem in the city to address, and the report could have been rushed. In the chaos of an accident, details are often difficult to nail down within that first half-hour, which is when almost all of these police reports are drafted.
–Grossman Law Offices
