WINNEMUCCA - Nevada Highway Patrol Capt. Tom Merschell and NHP Trooper and Public Information Officer Jim Stewart made the trip from the Elko NHP office to Winnemucca last week to bring a special message.
Merschell said they wanted to be sure area residents knew that completing the investigation into the mass I-80 accident near Winnemucca on June 10 was NHP's top priority.
"I started my career with the Nevada Highway Patrol here in Winnemucca and I care a great deal about this community. We want the community to know that we're here for them and that we're treating this accident as a high priority," Merschell said.
The investigative duties are being split between the Elko and Reno NHP offices. The Reno office is handling the investigation into I-80 eastbound vehicles involved in the accident. Major Accident Investigation (MAI) team members Scott Farmer and Chris Satterwhite will be under the leadership of Capt. Pat Gallagher, who is commander of the Reno MAI team.
The I-80 westbound portion of the investigation is being handled out of the Elko NHP office by two MAI team members, Sgt. Jake Harp from the Elko office, and Trooper Zach Petersen from Orovada.
Lt. Roy Boughman, who oversees the Elko office, told Merschell he believes the Elko office investigation into the westbound portion of the accident (which included the fatality) can be completed within two months.
Investigators had hoped to glean some information from the "black box" crash recorder on the commercial vehicle driven by 51-year- old Ravi Dyer, of Chicago, who lost his life in the June 10 wreck. However, the recorder was so severely damaged that no information was recoverable. Merschell said the decision was made not to attempt to download information from the recorders in other vehicles because investigators don't believe speed was a factor in the crash.
Merschell had some concern with information previously quoted from the Reno office that indicated their investigation into the
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eastbound portion of the accident hadn't even started. Merschell shared his view, stating "The accident investigation started the moment law enforcement, including the first highway patrol troopers, were on the scene." Initially on scene for the NHP were Lt. Greg Johnson and troopers Tim Raabe, Chris Brown and James Phillips, all stationed in Winnemucca.
Merschell said NHP had 18 troopers and supervisors on scene throughout the night on June 10 and through the next day. Merschell himself was on scene a few hours after getting the initial call from incident commander, Sheriff Ed Kilgore.
Merschell said, as have so many others, that the cooperation and professionalism of all of the first responders at the scene was phenomenal.
He said all but two of the commercial vehicles received a level one inspection the night of the accident from two of NHP's civilian commercial vehicle enforcement officers, Dan Mawson and Mark Willingham.
A level one inspection includes both mechanical inspection and review of all logging information kept by the driver. The other two commercial vehicles were taken to tow yards in Winnemucca, and their level one inspections were completed the day following the accident.
Merschell said he was confident that a thorough investigation will be concluded by the Reno office as soon as possible.
He noted, "This is the third multiple-vehicle accident that Capt. Gallagher and I have investigated together; we have a great working relationship."
Merschell said they investigated a multiple-vehicle accident on Grass Valley Road a number of years ago, also caused by dust blowing across the highway and poor visibility. There were no fatalities in that accident.
Their other cooperative accident investigation involved 25 vehicles that crashed on Immigrant Pass about 25 miles west of Carlin in 2005. There were five fatalities involved in that accident, also caused by blowing dust - from land left bare by the previous year's devastating wildfires in that area. That accident closed one side of the Interstate to travel for 23 hours. Since the crash involved vehicles on only one side of the freeway, once the dust storm stopped and visibility returned, traffic was eventually routed to run both directions on the other side of the freeway.
Merschell said although he isn't certain when Reno NHP will complete the eastbound investigation, Capt. Gallagher, who supervises Reno's MAI team, assured him it is their top priority.
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