Crash kills trucker
Black ice triggered accident

Workmen clean up the debris from an accident Wednesday morning involving a semi on Interstate 40 near mile marker 93. (Photo by Jerry Wilson/Independent)

By Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

Traffic on Interstate 40 west was brought to a stand still by Wednesday's fatal accident east of Grants. (Photo by Jerry Wilson/Independent)

GRANTS — Black ice, too much speed and a trucker trying to avoid an out-of-control vehicle on Interstate 40 are links in a gruesome crash which killed an Oklahoma trucker Wednesday.

The accident shut down the east bound lanes of Interstate 40 for around two hours, while workers cleared the wreckage and removed the dead man in the 27-degree weather.

Killed was Kerry Melton, 40, of Altus, Okla., who was driving a 1994 Kenworth tractor trailer rig west, toward Arizona, about 8 a.m. when the accident happened at Mile Marker 91, about six miles east of Grants.

State police said Olivia Moore, 25, of Los Angeles, Calif., was driving a 2004 KIA passenger car west on Interstate 40 in the right lane. She hit some black ice on the road, hit her brakes and began to slide sideways into the left lane, according to a police report.

Melton, meanwhile, was driving his rig behind Moore and saw her spin. The report states that witnesses saw Melton swerve to avoid hitting Moore, but the right side of Melton's trailer hit Moore's KIA on the left-front fender, sending the KIA spinning into the center median.

Melton's truck also went into the center median, which shifted the trailer's load, the report states. The truck careened over on it's left side, slid across the east bound lanes, ripped through a guardrail and plowed partially down a small embankment before coming to rest. The guardrail tore open the truck's cab and Melton, who police said was not wearing his seat belt, was thrown from the smashed vehicle.

State police, Mount Taylor Ambulance personnel, Grants Fire and Rescue Department personnel and emergency personnel from the Acoma Fire Department gave medical care to Moore, but he later died at the scene. George Hanna, of the Office of the Medical Investigations, pronounced Moore dead at 9:20 a.m.

There was just one word for the roads Wednesday morning ... slick.

Cibola County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Harry Hall drove to the Mile Marker 89 overpass from the sheriff's department on State Highway 117. "Be careful," Hall said into his police radio. "The roads are real slick here."

At first the plan was to divert traffic to New Mexico 124 from the Mile Marker 89 overpass, but the state police ended up closing down New Mexico 124 as well.

At 8:30 Grants Police rushed to the Interstate at Mile Marker 85, to stop traffic on the interstate at that point.

Traffic was fast coming to a slow crawl, or not moving at all. At 8:40 a.m. a trucker on his citizen band radio called to another trucker saying, "Man, it's slow out here. The road ... we're barely moving."

At 8:45 a.m. the police radio crackled and the news went out, "It's going to be a fatal now."

Sgt. Rick Doty had been trying to get to the accident sight. "These streets are really slick, so I'm going to take it easy," he said into his police radio.

One member of a New Mexico Department of Transportation sanding crew on the job Wednesday morning saw part of the accident.

With personnel from the State Police Milan Substation heavily strained, Gallup announced it was sending two officers to Grants to help in other calls.

At 8:55 a.m. the state police radio crackled. "Advise the highway department to shut it down," the officer said, referring to the east bound lanes of Interstate 40 and New Mexico 124. At that moment no traffic was being allowed to continue east.

The highway department wanted to divert traffic into Grants, but the state police said the amount of cars and trucks on the interstate would clog Grants. "Keep them on the highway," a state police officer said.

Absolutely no one was moving, except for the emergency personnel. Even an INS van carrying five undocumented persons was caught up in the drama. The van driver talked to police on his radio to get special permission to drive through, but he was not allowed to move. "They won't be able to get through until this mess is gone," an officer said.

At 10:50 a.m., cars and trucks in the east bound lanes began to move again and Interstate 40 was once again open.