A 60-year-old West Bountiful man died at the scene after the semitruck he was driving blew a front steer tire, crossed the median, and overturned across both westbound lanes of Interstate 80 in remote eastern Nevada. Curtis Vernon Okelberry was behind the wheel of a 2016 Freightliner semitrailer traveling eastbound when the blowout sent the rig careening out of control, according to Nevada Highway Patrol.
The crash happened on I-80 between Wells and Wendover, according to KSL News, which reported that troopers say the left front steer tire failed before the truck crossed the center median and flipped onto its side, blocking the westbound lanes. Debris from the wreck struck a westbound car, though Nevada Highway Patrol said the people inside that vehicle were not injured. Separate reporting relayed by KSL placed the crash near the Nevada State Route 233 interchange, on the long freight corridor linking Salt Lake City and Reno.
Westbound lanes of I-80 stayed closed for several hours while crews worked the scene before reopening, KSL's report noted. The crash remains under investigation, per the outlet's account.
Crash Investigation
The wreck is being investigated by the Nevada Highway Patrol, according to a post relaying troopers' account.
Front steer tire failures are considered especially dangerous for big rigs. Legal and safety analyses from Cook, Bradford & Levy note that a blowout on a steer tire creates severe lateral pull, dragging an 80,000-pound truck toward the side of the failure and making the vehicle difficult to control even for experienced drivers. Federal rules under 49 CFR § 393.75 require steer axle tires to carry at least 4/32 inch of tread depth, twice the minimum required for non-steer tires, in order to preserve directional control, according to a safety guide from Consulics.
Elko County's Fatal Crash Surge
The crash lands amid a sharp rise in road deaths on this stretch of eastern Nevada. Traffic fatalities in Elko County jumped 140% from January through July 2026 compared with the same period last year, according to Nevada Office of Traffic Safety figures reported by the Elko Daily Free Press. That local spike stands in contrast to the statewide trend: Nevada traffic deaths overall fell nearly 12% between January and August 2026, with 230 fatalities recorded compared with 261 during the same stretch of 2025, per figures shared in a Facebook video from News 3 Las Vegas.
It is not the first time a tire blowout has proven fatal on this same corridor. A similar rollover killed a Utah truck driver in July 2021 after a semitruck tire blew about 26 miles east of Wells, the Elko Daily Free Press reported. Heavy commercial truck traffic through the area has previously prompted the Nevada Department of Transportation to fund multi-million-dollar passing lane and roadway safety upgrades near Wells, according to the same outlet.
The role of maintenance or inspection records in Okelberry's crash remains unknown, and the cause remains under investigation.
