Not A Typical Trooper Crash Investigation

Medicine Bow – Troopers are called to investigate crashes on a daily basis on Wyoming’s highways with no two crashes ever being the same during their entire career.  There are however, those crashes that stand out among the many. 

Just such a crash occurred Wednesday just before 9:00 a.m. on highway WYO 487 which runs through the town of Medicine Bow.  A Trooper was dispatched to a single vehicle crash reported to be a car crashing into a garage. 

When the Trooper arrived on scene the driver of the Ford Focus passenger car was in the process of being extricated from the vehicle by local fire department personnel.  If not the car, the entire garage appears from the photo to be a total loss. 

The Trooper during his crash investigation has determined that the driver, 63 year-old Steven Richardson from Laramie, was traveling approximately 60-65 mph in the posted 30 mph zone when his vehicle gradually went off the dry roadway on the left side.  The vehicle then ramped off the approach of Oak Street going airborne some 76 feet across Oak Street before landing in the garage.

Richardson was transported to Memorial Hospital of Carbon County in Rawlins and has been cited for driving while under the influence of a controlled substance.