Damakant Jayshi
Last week, the Marathon County Sheriff’s Department reported yet another crash near Wausau in which one person died and three others were injured.
According to preliminary data from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, this is at least the seventh fatal crash reported in Marathon County this year. The county’s annual average of 12 fatal crashes is the ninth highest in the state. Wisconsin has 72 counties, with the average number of deaths statewide from 2018 to 2022 pegged at 581. So far this year, 454 people have died on Wisconsin’s roads.
Five of the crashes in Marathon have been investigated by the Sheriff’s Department, according to the information shared with this newspaper.
Of the three crashes for which details are available, one involved a head-on collision between two cars in the Town of Halsey in February. One driver died at the scene while another driver was seriously injured.
Another crash was reported in the Town of Hull in June, involving a heavy truck that entered a ditch one mile off West Chestnut Lane and hit a tree. The driver died in the crash. The report attributes a medical event as the cause of the crash.
Marathon County Sheriff’s Capt. Ryan Weber said the details cannot be released to to health privacy laws.
In another fatal crash, this time in the town of Wausau, a motorcycle veered off the road in the town of Wausau. A witness reported seeing the driver slumped over the handlebars before the crash, and the medical examiner’s report noted that the driver did not die of his injuries. In this instance as well, medical information was not released.
Weber said two crashes are under active investigation by the Sheriff’s Department including a fatal Oct. 25 Town of Texas crash.
The two remaining crashes that the WisDOT has reported that resulted in deaths might have been investigated by other municipal police departments, or the Wisconsin State Patrol, said Weber.
“We are always concerned when someone loses their life in a motor vehicle crash or otherwise,” Weber told this newspaper, adding that they would like the drivers “to obey the rules of the road, drive with care, and not drive while intoxicated.”
