A 65-year-old Edinburg man is dead after the tire of his pickup truck blew out on U.S. 281 south of Alice, sending the vehicle into a rollover that also struck another truck and flung a loaded trailer over a guardrail. Arturo Ponce died at the scene of the crash, which happened about six miles north of Premont in Jim Wells County on Friday afternoon.
According to krgv.com, the crash happened around 3:09 p.m. Ponce was driving a 1999 Ford F-250 southbound on U.S. 281 while towing a trailer loaded with a tractor when the truck's left-front tire blew out. The failure sent the F-250 into a 2025 Toyota Tacoma, pushing that vehicle into the center median, before the F-250 itself rolled over and came to rest in the highway's inside lane.
Trailer Tore Loose and Landed in the Median
The impact also ripped the loaded trailer free from the truck. The trailer rolled over the guardrail and ended up in the center median, separate from where the F-250 itself stopped, per the same krgv.com account. Ponce, identified as the Edinburg resident behind the wheel, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Two other 65-year-old men were riding in the F-250 with Ponce at the time of the crash. One of them was flown by Halo Flight to Christus Spohn Shoreline Hospital in Corpus Christi for treatment, while the second passenger escaped the wreck uninjured, the outlet's report states. The 42-year-old driver of the Toyota Tacoma that was struck also walked away without injury.
Investigation Continues Out of Alice
Troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety's Alice Highway Patrol Office were still investigating the crash as of the latest reporting, and no further details on the cause beyond the tire failure have been released. The 3News on KIII-TV account of the crash, bylined by Iris Gonzalez, confirmed the same sequence of events reported by investigators, including Ponce's identity and the fate of the two surviving passengers.
This is not the only serious crash troopers from the same Alice office have worked along U.S. 281 in Jim Wells County this month. Just two days earlier, on October 21, a two-vehicle crash at the intersection of U.S. 281 and County Road 239 killed 47-year-old Jennifer Lee of Orange Grove, whose Ford Explorer was struck by a Chevrolet Silverado, according to KRISTV. Four people from Weslaco, including three children ages 13, 9 and 8, were hospitalized in that crash, which also remains under investigation by DPS troopers out of Alice.
The back-to-back fatal wrecks add to a troubling pattern on the county's roadways. A previous rollover crash in Jim Wells County left one man dead and another injured in August 2025, according to kiiitv.com, underscoring the dangers drivers face along stretches of highway that see heavy truck and trailer traffic.
