A 45-year-old West Bend man died Saturday morning after his vehicle left Park Avenue, crashed through a fence at the top of an overpass, went airborne down an embankment and slammed into a box truck merging onto northbound U.S. Highway 45. The box truck driver, a 59-year-old man from Theresa, was seriously injured but survived. Northbound Highway 45 was shut down for nearly four hours while crews worked the scene.
According to a Washington County Sheriff's Office press release, the agency's dispatch center received a 911 call reporting a vehicle overturned on its roof and a box truck sitting in the median of U.S. Highway 45, just north of the Park Avenue overpass, on Saturday morning. Dispatchers soon got additional information that a male subject was on the ground with serious injuries. The first deputy arrived at the scene approximately two minutes after being dispatched and found the man being helped by a good Samaritan who had stopped to assist.
The crash happened near U.S. Highway 45 and Park Avenue at around 7:21 a.m. on Saturday, as reported by fox6now.com. A preliminary investigation indicated the 45-year-old driver was heading west on Park Avenue when his vehicle left the roadway to the right, according to the same station's report.
Vehicle Went Through a Fence and Became Airborne
Per the sheriff's office, the vehicle then traveled through a fence at the top of the Park Avenue overpass and became airborne, going down the embankment toward U.S. Highway 45 below. The vehicle struck a box truck that was merging northbound onto Highway 45 from Highway 33/Washington Street, according to washingtoncountyinsider.com.
The 45-year-old driver was transported by ambulance to Froedtert West Bend Hospital, where he later died from his injuries, the sheriff's office said. The box truck driver reported head, neck and lower-back pain at the scene and was transported by ambulance to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, per the same account.
Highway Closed for Hours as Deputies Worked the Scene
Additional deputies closed all northbound lanes of U.S. Highway 45 to allow for patient care and the crash investigation. Northbound traffic remained closed until approximately 10:55 a.m., the sheriff's office said.
The Washington County Sheriff's Office Crash Investigation Unit is investigating the crash, and the agency said no further information was being released at this time. It is not the first fatal crash the sheriff's office has responded to along that stretch of Highway 45 — in September 2023, a Winnebago County man died in a single-vehicle crash on U.S. Highway 45 in West Bend following a short police pursuit, according to gmtoday.com. No additional details about Saturday's investigation, including the cause of the crash, have been made public.
