A 47-year-old Osmond woman died Wednesday after the pickup truck she was driving collided with a tractor pulling a grain cart on U.S. Highway 20 in Pierce County, throwing both her and a passenger from the vehicle. Tracy Jensen was pronounced dead at the scene, while 45-year-old Matthew Jensen, the pickup's passenger, was flown to a hospital in Omaha after the crash rolled their Toyota Tacoma several times.
Pickup Tried to Pass Tractor as It Turned
According to Norfolk NE Radio, the Pierce County Sheriff's Office received a report of the crash shortly before noon Wednesday near the intersection of U.S. Highway 20 and 542nd Avenue, roughly halfway between Plainview and Osmond. The report indicates the Tacoma was traveling eastbound on Highway 20 and attempted to pass a John Deere tractor pulling a grain cart as the tractor turned left onto 542nd Avenue.
The Tacoma struck the front tire of the tractor, the outlet reports, and rolled multiple times after the driver lost control. Tracy Jensen and Matthew Jensen, both of Osmond, were thrown from the pickup in the crash. Neither was wearing a seatbelt, according to the reported account.
Passenger Flown to UNMC, Tractor Operator Uninjured
Matthew Jensen was first taken by ambulance to Osmond General Hospital before being flown to the University of Nebraska Medical Center for further treatment, the station's report states. The tractor's operator, 44-year-old Justin Dohmen of Lincoln, was not injured in the crash.
No further details on citations, charges, or enforcement actions tied to the crash were included in the available reporting, and no independent law-enforcement release has been issued confirming the account beyond the station's coverage.
A Familiar Danger on Rural Highways
Crashes between farm equipment and passenger vehicles are a recurring hazard on Nebraska's rural roads, particularly during harvest season when tractors and grain carts move between fields. The University of Nebraska Medical Center notes that tractor rollovers are the single deadliest type of farm incident in the state, and its records of Nebraska agricultural fatalities and injuries from 2012 through 2023 document several similar roadway collisions. In 2023, a 28-year-old man in Merrick County died in a head-on collision with a tractor, and Ray Bouray, 60, was killed when the tractor he was driving was sideswiped by a car. A 2019 crash near Heartwell claimed the life of a 49-year-old man after a semitrailer rear-ended his tractor, while a 2022 collision in Pickrell left a 67-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman injured after a tractor collided with an SUV.
Statewide, motor vehicle crashes remain among the leading causes of death nationally, with more than 30,000 fatalities recorded annually, according to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, though the agency notes Nebraska's traffic-related death toll has declined since the 1970s. Researchers publishing through the National Library of Medicine have also examined farm equipment-related crashes using law-enforcement data across nine Midwestern states, including Nebraska, looking at how crash conditions and vehicle characteristics affect injury outcomes. The UNMC document that tracks these incidents cautions that its newsclip-based listings are not a complete record of every agricultural incident in the state.
