An 18-year-old Buffalo woman is dead after a multiple car accident after midnight on Monday, June 7 near Castle Pines, Colorado.
According to reports, Kendra Durnan, 18, of Buffalo was riding in a vehicle on I-25 south of Denver when the driver struck an elk on the highway, totaling the vehicle.
She exited the vehicle to examine the situation, but the elk was still in the roadway. That decision ultimately cost her her life, as another car careened into the area trying to avoid the animal, causing a multiple car accident that involved at least two more vehicles.
Durnan was pronounced dead at the scene, as her body had been thrown into the northbound lanes of the highway by the force of multiple collisions.
The Colorado State Patrol reports Durnan and the 21-year-old driver of the SUV were standing on the left shoulder along with a good Samaritan who had stopped to help, when another vehicle hit the elk in the roadway and careened onto the shoulder of I-25. Durnan was struck and killed, and the other two people were thrown over a concrete barrier and into the northbound lanes of the interstate.
The patrol says the SUV that hit Durnan than bounced back into traffic and collided with two other vehicles. Nine people in all were transported to a hospital with injuries.
According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, the 10-mile stretch of I-25 where the crash occurred has some of the highest numbers of roadkill reports for highways in the Denver metro area.
The state patrol says the interstate was reopened shortly after 7 a.m. after the crash scene was reconstructed and cleared. Speed, drugs or alcohol are not considered factors in the incident.