Caddo Parish, LA — Police said that a truck driver from Arkansas may be to blame for a serious wreck on Highway 79 near the Arkansas-Louisiana border that left a Keithville man badly injured. They said that Edward Duraczynski, 77 was badly injured after Stephen Marvel’s semi-truck swerved into oncoming traffic and crashed into his pickup truck.
The accident also involved an SUV. This happened on Wednesday night (July 15, 2015), but Marvel and Duraczynski were the only ones injured.
According to the news reports I’ve been reading, Stephen Marvel had been driving his semi-truck south along Highway 79 at about 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday night when he came to the intersection with Buncombe Road – where the highway has a sharp curve, and crossed into oncoming traffic.
His semi-truck crashed into Edward Duraczynski’s pickup in a head-on wreck, leaving Mr. Duraczynski with critical injuries. An SUV driving behind Duraczynski was also involved in the accident, but nobody in that vehicle was harmed. Stephen Marvel was also injured, but not as badly as Duraczynski.
Police said that Marvel had lost control of his truck, but didn’t speculate on why or how.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
Most truckers out there are hardworking, courteous, and professionals who go their whole career without getting into a wreck — then there’s guys like this who make you wonder how they even got a CDL in the first place.
I don’t mean to sound so harsh, but it’s the truth. Someone needs to look into what this trucker was doing before the crash because, odds are, there was something else going on that the news and police didn’t catch.
We recently saw an accident in Missouri where a truck driver lost control and hit a parked car on the side of the road, then went into oncoming traffic. At first, we thought maybe the trucker had fallen asleep at the wheel, but as it turns out, he was reaching for his headphones and took his eyes off the road. I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar happened here.
This is one of those accidents that, after looking at what happened, you’re just glad that nobody was killed. The semi-truck driver was completely in the wrong – from what I can tell, at least – and it’s a miracle that his rig didn’t kill that other driver.
Take a look at the map above and notice how this highway curves around pretty sharply at the intersection with Buncombe Road. Normally, I don’t like to analyze things from a distance (I prefer to be there in person), but it seems fairly obvious to me what happened: the truck driver wasn’t paying attention to the road and swerved into the other lanes because he didn’t navigate the curve correctly.
Perhaps something else happened, but that seems like the most likely explanation.
What does that really mean? Well, for starters, I think it means that people ought to be pretty upset with this trucker. I mean, a professional driver who causes an accident this serious is going to have to answer for what he’s done, but I get irritated just reading about these things online.
— Grossman Law Offices
