Apr 1, 2008 9:02 pm US/Mountain
Man Killed In I-70 Pileup Was Longmont Teacher
DENVER (AP/CBS4) ―
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Lance Melting with his family
CBS
Authorities say the man killed in a pileup of dozens of cars near Vail Pass was Lance Melting, 39 of Longmont.
Transportation officials have reopened Colorado's main east-west highway but say it may be days before investigators are able to sort out the chain of events in a pileup involving 60 to 75 vehicles.
In addition to Melting's death, at least 22 were injured in the crash that left Interstate 70 closed for nearly eight hours Monday, stranding travelers who scrambled to find hotel rooms in the mountain communities on either side of Vail Pass.
Melting died when the minivan he was driving crashed into a semitrailer. The bottom half of the minivan wedged under the truck's trailer, according to the Colorado State Patrol.
Five people remained hospitalized Tuesday. Melting's wife, Jamie Lathrop Melting, is among them. She is in serious condition at St. Anthony Central in Denver.
The couple's four children were amazingly safe and not seriously hurt. The family was driving to California and a vacation at Disneyland.
Lance Melting was a special education teacher at Heritage Middle School in Longmont. Jamie Melting is also a teacher in the Saint Vrain Valley School District.
Friends worry about the family's children.
"Right now, just going through the trauma of the accident, but what are they going to go through when come back and flip back the life switch on and have to step back into life and doing it without their dad," said Michael Cocannouer, a family friend.
Authorities spent Monday evening busing drivers caught in the pileup to nearby towns and clearing the dozens of tangled vehicles from the westbound lanes of the highway. The interstate was reopened in both directions by Monday night.
Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gilbert Sullivan said the accident happened during snowy weather Monday afternoon in the westbound lanes about a mile west of the summit. He said it appeared a semitrailer jackknifed and caused the original crash.
Kenny Griffin was one of the last people to make it over Vail Pass when he saw the crash.
"It was just a big pinball wreck," Griffin said.
Griffin said he saw six semitrailers-- two of them jackknifed -- at the front of the wreck with at least a dozen of cars jammed in-between. There appeared to be a second group of crashes farther behind, he said, with cars upside-down and pinned under one another.
The state patrol confirmed a second pileup Tuesday.
At least 16 people with broken bones, bruises, and scrapes were taken to Vail Valley Medical Center, about 15 miles west of the scene, said hospital spokesman Don Bishop. By Tuesday, the two who remained there were in fair condition.
Six people were taken to a hospital in Breckenridge, where three remained hospitalized Tuesday. Their conditions were not released.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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