A rollover crash at South Desert Boulevard and Transmountain near Northwest El Paso sent three people to the hospital Thursday evening, with one suffering severe injuries, according to the El Paso Fire Department. The wreck is the latest in a string of serious crashes along the Transmountain corridor, a stretch of roadway that has drawn growing scrutiny from city leaders in recent weeks.
The crash happened around 4:57 p.m. Thursday, according to the Texas Department of Transportation, as reported by KVIA. The El Paso County Sheriff's Office responded to the scene, the station reported. KFOX reported that one person sustained serious injuries while two others suffered minor injuries, citing the El Paso Fire Department, which responded with information on the crash location and the number hurt.
KVIA offered a different account of the most serious injury, reporting that one of the three hospitalized had life-threatening injuries. The discrepancy between the two outlets' characterizations of that injury has not been resolved. No information has been released on what caused Thursday's rollover.
Video Captured at the Scene
A witness account identified by KFOX as @therealfitfamelpaso shared video of the crash, according to the station's report. The footage and accompanying images were credited to that account as the story developed Thursday evening.
A Corridor Already Under Scrutiny
Thursday's crash adds to what KVIA described as a pattern of serious wrecks in the area, including one that killed a man on Oct. 19. That earlier crash, a multi-vehicle collision at Transmountain Road and North Desert Boulevard, resulted in one fatality and nine injuries, according to the El Paso Times. Police said a semitrailer continued through the North Desert intersection, where it sideswiped a Toyota RAV4 and pushed it into a Ford F-150 at the South Desert intersection. The person killed was identified as 42-year-old Rene Dario Perez-Ramirez, the driver of a Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck, and the truck driver involved reported that the semitrailer's brakes failed while traveling downhill on Transmountain Road, the paper reported.
That Oct. 19 crash injured several people beyond the fatality, with one person airlifted to the hospital and four others taken with minor injuries, according to CBS4 Local. The outlet also noted that a late-August semi-truck crash near the same Desert South intersection at Transmountain had hospitalized two people with minor injuries. Years of deadly wrecks on the steep Transmountain grade previously prompted TxDOT to open the first mechanical runaway truck ramp in Texas, per the CBS4 Local report.
City Response to a Rising Death Toll
El Paso had recorded 55 traffic-related deaths this year as of the Oct. 20 report, compared with 51 at the same point in 2025, the El Paso Times reported. In the wake of the Oct. 19 fatality, El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said the city would work with the state to try to ban heavy commercial vehicles on Transmountain Road. El Paso police also said they would immediately increase traffic enforcement on the roadway, including commercial vehicle inspections, according to the same report.
It remains unclear whether those proposed restrictions or the promised enforcement increase have been put into effect in the time since. TxDOT's El Paso office posted on X during an earlier multi-vehicle crash on the corridor that all lanes were closed at Desert North and South at Transmountain, as well as at Spur 16 at Talbot, with clearing time listed as unknown at the time. As of Thursday evening, no cause had been reported for the latest rollover, and the conditions of the three people hospitalized had not been detailed beyond the injury counts given by fire officials.
