1 killed in US 6 crash near Keystone
A fatal crash near Keystone shut down U.S. Highway 6 for several hours Thursday morning and kept emergency crews on scene for much of the day investigating and clearing the area.
At about 8:25 a.m., a pickup truck collided head-on with a semitrailer on Highway 6 just off Landfill Road west of Keystone, according to Steve Lipsher, public information officer for Summit Fire & EMS. The driver of the pickup was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the semitrailer was uninjured.
The exact cause of the crash isn’t known, though Lipsher said the pickup was traveling eastbound toward Keystone and the semitrailer was traveling westbound toward Dillon when the crash occurred. Both vehicles ended up in the westbound lane.
Summit Fire crews reported “very slick” conditions on the roadway this morning, and Colorado State Patrol is conducting an investigation into the crash.
The crash kept the westbound lane of Highway 6 closed for several hours, though emergency crews were able to route westbound traffic down an eastbound lane to ease congestion sometime around 11 a.m.
Support Local Journalism
The semitrailer was carrying “a variety of potentially hazardous materials,” according to Lipsher. It went off the road and into a ditch during the crash, so emergency crews with Summit Fire had to wait for a heavy tow truck to pull the semi back to flat ground so they could safely offload the materials. Lipsher said the department isn’t aware of any continuing leaks and didn’t have any details about what specific substances were on board.