HARRISVILLE — Police have released the name of the man killed in Friday night’s crash on U.S. 89.
Robert Michael Flores, 19, of Harrisville, died in the 8 p.m. mishap several blocks north of U.S. 89’s intersection with Wall Avenue here, Police Chief Max Jackson said Saturday.
Flores was traveling between 80 and 100 mph, passing cars when he hit ice in the center lane and lost control, colliding with an oncoming pickup truck, Jackson said. His vehicle was sheered in half, he said, the back half virtually welded to the truck.
The accident scene and debris field measured a quarter mile long, requiring the closing of multiple lanes of U.S. 89 until 2 a.m. The driver of the truck was hospitalized briefly with non-life-threatening injuries.
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HARRISVILLE -- Police believe speed and icy road conditions are factors that have led to a local young man's death here.
Police were planning to be busy throughout the night Friday reconstructing the 8 p.m. accident. But Harrisville Police Chief Maxwell Jackson said a preliminary guess is that a speeding car hit ice in the median of the road, causing it to spin around and hit an oncoming truck.
The accident occurred about a half-mile north of 1100 North on Highway 89.
"There is such a large debris field, it will take the Utah Highway Patrol reconstruction team most of the night to figure it out," said Harrisville Police Chief Maxwell Jackson.
Highway 89 would remain closed in that area for several hours.
Police initially reported that the male driver of the car had suffered from a severe skull fracture. Police told dispatchers they could not ascertain the make of the car in which the driver was killed because it was so mangled.
The police chief said the car was cut in half in the crash.
Jackson believed the driver was a Harrisville juvenile. The police chief had the victim's name Friday night but was not releasing it pending notification of next of kin.
The driver of the truck, also a male, was sent to a local hospital. Jackson said EMTs believed he would recover from his injuries.
The police chief said the accident was rare for the area in which it occurred.
"We usually don't get them this bad out here," he said. "They're usually at intersections."
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