A collision on the Seward Highway Tuesday morning killed one man and injured three others, according to a Wednesday dispatch from the Alaska State Troopers.
At about 9:27 a.m. on Tuesday, dispatchers with the Soldotna Public Safety Communications Center received several calls about the collision from the emergency call box at the Silvertip DOT maintenance station. Seward-based troopers and EMS teams from Cooper Landing and Girdwood responded to the scene at Mile 62 of the Seward Highway, near Granite Creek and Johnson Pass, and found that two box trucks had collided with each other.
Initial investigation showed that a northbound truck lost control and began to swerve across the highway, colliding head-on with another truck driving southbound.
Ifomaava Tagalu, 34, of Anchorage, was the driver of the southbound truck and was pronounced dead at the scene of the collision. Yulier Guevara, 34, of Hollywood, Florida, was the driver of the northbound truck and was taken to a hospital in Anchorage. Tagalu’s two passengers were also taken to Anchorage for hospitalization.
Tim DeSpain, information officer with the Department of Public Safety, said in an email Wednesday that the injuries sustained by Guevara as well as Tagalu’s two passengers were considered non-life threatening at the time of the initial investigation. There are no updates on their conditions as of Wednesday.
The crash is still under investigation, but road conditions may have been a factor, DeSpain said. Next of kin have been notified.
Reach reporter Brian Mazurek at bmazurek@peninsulaclarion.com.
