A wrong-way crash on southbound Interstate 15 near mile marker 77 killed two drivers early Friday, shutting down the freeway near the Valley of Fire area for hours and forcing a lengthy detour for anyone headed toward Las Vegas from Mesquite or Utah. The Clark County coroner's office identified the victims as 29-year-old Aaron Rodriguez Hernandez of Mesquite and 38-year-old Alba Bueno-Lopez.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, troopers said the crash involved a two-door coupe and a four-door sedan, with one vehicle heading north in a southbound lane before the head-on impact. Both drivers, a man and a woman, were pronounced dead at the scene, police told the paper. Reports have varied on the exact timing of the crash, with 8 News Now reporting it happened shortly after 3:45 a.m. Friday, Oct. 23, while FOX5 Vegas said the incident was reported just after 4 a.m. and the Review-Journal cited Nevada Highway Patrol putting the crash at 4:13 a.m.
Freeway Shut Down For Hours, Detour Added An Hour
Southbound I-15 traffic was closed at Exit 93, also known as State Route 168, with drivers diverted onto that route toward U.S. Highway 93, per the same 8 News Now account. The station reported the detour added about an hour to travel times for anyone trying to reach the Las Vegas Valley from the north. All lanes on I-15 reopened around 11:30 a.m., according to Nevada State Police, the outlet's report noted.
As reported by Nevada Globe, Nevada State Police collision reconstruction investigators are examining the cause of the crash.
A Familiar And Deadly Pattern On Nevada Freeways
This is not an isolated incident on this stretch of highway. A separate wrong-way crash on I-15 in Clark County killed two women on Oct. 9, in a collision that involved a passenger car, a sedan and a semi-truck, according to FOX5 Vegas. And back on April 30, another crash near the Valley of Fire killed two men and left a woman with serious injuries requiring an airlift to an area hospital, per 8 News Now's earlier coverage.
The pattern reflects a broader statewide problem. Research compiled by the UNLV Transportation Research Center found that Nevada recorded 38 fatal wrong-way crashes causing 57 deaths on interstate highways and county roads between 2017 and 2024, with Clark County accounting for 23 of those crashes, or 60.5% of the statewide total. Among the 38 wrong-way drivers studied, 87% tested positive for at least one substance where toxicology was conducted, and substance use factored into nearly 90% of the crashes overall, the center's data shows.
Nationally, the scale is far larger: 4,164 fatal wrong-way crashes on divided highways caused 5,730 deaths between 2014 and 2023, according to the same UNLV research. A National Transportation Safety Board analysis separately found that roughly 78% of fatal wrong-way collisions happen between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., a window that includes Friday's predawn crash. The NTSB has previously investigated similar incidents in Nevada, including a 2011 wrong-way collision in Fernley that killed both drivers and injured a passenger.
In response to the broader trend, NDOT identified locations across the Las Vegas Valley in 2025 for new wrong-way driver detection systems, according to the UNLV data. The agency has said it currently places wrong-way signage at all freeway off-ramps.
