A 7-year-old girl is deceased and her mother is critically injured after the Chevy pickup truck they were in was hit by a semi-truck that crossed through the median on Interstate 15 in late November near Fort Hall.
According to the state police, the southbound 18-wheeler blew a tire and the driver lost control. The Freightliner crashed head-on into the Holbrook family’s 2007 model pickup. A mother was traveling with her four children. State Police said the mother and children were properly restrained with seat belts and car seats. Suffering from life-threatening injuries, the mother was extricated from the smashed pickup and flown by air ambulance to the hospital.
As is the case many times in accidents like these where a semi-truck is out of control, the truck driver was not seriously injured.
Why in this case did the tire blow? And what other factors were involved for the driver to lose control so badly that the semi crossed through an Interstate Highway median? Was speed an issue? Was distraction an issue? How had the tire been maintained? Was it properly inflated? Was it threadbare?
“It’s our experience that some commercial operators cut corners on safety,” said attorney Fred Pritzker, who represents clients in Minnesota. “Holding trucking firms and independent truckers accountable for high-speed, large-tonnage crashes that they cause is what we do. Many times these accidents were preventable.”
A Go Fund Me donation drive for the family has raised nearly $30,000. This crash is under investigation by the Idaho State Police, but any good truck accident lawyer would launch an independent investigation to prepare for a possible semi truck lawsuit.
