Bloomfield, NM — Early Thursday morning, there were two semi-truck accidents south of Bloomfield on U.S. 550 that killed three family members: a mother and her two adult children. Police said that Margaret Domingo, 50, Jeremiah Domingo, 30, and Jerdania Domingo, 28, were killed when their car was hit head-on by a semi-truck swerving to miss another wreck.
It happened in front of a gas station on U.S. 550 at about 6:10 a.m. on Thursday morning, September 25. An 18-wheeler truck was pulling out of the gas station and tried to turn onto U.S. 550, but pulled into the path of a northbound pickup truck. Those two vehicles collided, creating an accident scene.
As the two vehicles sat in the road, another semi-truck (headed south on the highway) came upon the scene and failed to brake in time. The second semi-truck swerved into the opposite lanes of traffic, where it collided head-on with the Domingo’s car.
Margaret and Jeremiah were killed immediately in the wreck, but Jerdania was taken to a hospital, where she died later that night.
Allegedly, the driver of the first 18-wheeler truck (the one that pulled out of the gas station) drove away and police haven’t been able to locate it yet.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary:
From the way the news reports are describing this accident, there seem to be two likely scenarios to consider. 1) The first 18-wheeler caused an accident that the second semi-truck driver simply couldn’t have avoided. 2) The second semi-truck driver wasn’t paying attention to the road and should have had enough time to brake, but had to swerve into oncoming traffic at the last second instead.
Now, the second scenario I’ve described here seems to be the most logical one. However, I still think the second semi-truck driver is going to bear some fault no matter what. You should always have enough distance between you and the rest of traffic so you can brake for emergencies like this one. Split-second decisions aside, swerving into oncoming traffic is never a good evasive measure. I realize this truck driver didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but swerving into the opposite lanes is simply asking for trouble.
— Grossman Law Offices