A head-on collision southeast of Calistoga injured three people Tuesday morning and shut down both lanes of Highway 29/128, with two of the victims requiring extrication from the wreckage before crews could get them out. The crash tied up the key wine country corridor for roughly an hour and a half before it reopened shortly after 9 a.m.
According to the Napa Valley Register, the California Highway Patrol's incident log reported the crash at 7:36 a.m. north of Bale Lane, involving a Chevrolet pickup truck and a 2003 Acura TL sedan. The California Highway Patrol reported that three people were injured in the head-on collision, with two sustaining major injuries and requiring extrication from the wreck. Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit reported that the third suffered only minor injuries. CHP officers requested both air and ground ambulances to the scene as the roadway remained blocked in both directions.
How the Injured Were Taken From the Scene
Per a Facebook post cited by the same report, the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit said one patient was flown to a hospital, a second was transported by ambulance, and a third was treated at the scene. Cal Fire reported that the third patient suffered only minor injuries, consistent with the California Highway Patrol's account of the crash's toll. The Napa Valley Register report was credited to a city editor.
Highway 29 was closed following the crash and did not reopen until shortly after 9 a.m., leaving commuters and wine country traffic delayed during the roughly hour-and-a-half closure. The corridor has seen repeated serious crashes over the years, underscoring persistent safety concerns on the stretch linking Calistoga to the rest of Napa Valley.
A Stretch With a History of Serious Wrecks
This is not the first time the area has seen a violent head-on crash. A February 3 collision north of Calistoga left both drivers hospitalized with major injuries, according to the California Highway Patrol, as reported by the Napa Valley Register. That crash occurred at about 12:30 p.m. on Highway 29 north of Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, when a Scion tC driven by 76-year-old Marshall Baines crossed the double-yellow center lines, for reasons under investigation, into the path of a Chevrolet Silverado pickup driven by 52-year-old Rosalie Martin.
Baines was flown by CHP helicopter to Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, while an American Medical Response ambulance took Martin to St. Helena Hospital. A passenger, 61-year-old Micheal Lernhart, was also taken to St. Helena Hospital for a complaint of pain. The February crash shut down Highway 29 for about 30 minutes, and the CHP said neither alcohol nor drugs were believed to be factors.
A Road With a Troubled Track Record
Other serious collisions have unfolded along the same corridor in recent years. A head-on crash on Highway 29 north of St. Helena on a Saturday evening sent eight people to Napa County-area hospitals, involving a Grand Wagoneer sport utility vehicle that collided with a black vehicle, Hoodline previously reported in its coverage of the eight-hospitalized Highway 29 crash. That same report noted that two people died in a November 2019 collision on Highway 29 just north of St. Helena, and that a fatal crash near Yountville in May 2021 killed a 24-year-old St. Helena man and injured four others.
Further back, a head-on collision on State Highway 29 south of Calistoga on March 15, 2021, killed a 64-year-old Santa Rosa man and caused major injuries to two other people, according to Patch. A 62-year-old passenger in the Infiniti involved suffered major injuries and was airlifted to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, the outlet reported. A separate two-vehicle collision north of St. Helena in February 2023 left both drivers hospitalized, with one reported to have major injuries, per Hoodline's earlier reporting.
A Napa County transportation report has identified congestion on State Route 29 between Yountville and St. Helena, a detail that speaks to the broader strain on the corridor even as Tuesday's crash remains under investigation. No further details on citations, arrests, or the cause of the latest collision were available as of Tuesday afternoon.
