4 teens killed, 2 injured in crash on Colorado’s plains

WILEY, Colo. (AP) — Four teenagers were killed and two other people were hospitalized when the SUV the teens were riding in ran a stop sign and hit a semitrailer on Colorado’s rural southeastern plains on Wednesday night, the Colorado State Patrol said.

The eastbound Ford Explorer carrying five teens went through a stop sign at a county road intersecting with U.S. Highway 287 and was hit by the northbound truck, near the small town of Wiley, the state patrol said.

A 16-year-old boy who was driving along with a 16-year-old boy, a 15-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl died. A 16-year-old boy was flown to a hospital in Colorado Springs.

A 50-year-old man who was in the semitrailer’s sleeper berth was also hospitalized with serious injuries, the patrol said. The 25-year-old man driving the truck was treated at the hospital and released.

Drugs and alcohol are not suspected of causing the crash, the patrol said.

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This story was first published on September 9, 2021. It was updated on September 10, 2021, to correct erroneous information from the Colorado State Patrol, which had said that an SUV the teens were riding in made a left turn in front of a semitrailer and that the girl who died was 14. The agency said it later determined that the SUV instead ran a stop sign and was hit by the truck. It also said the girl who died was 15.