A five-vehicle crash involving a semi-truck near Parker House Haunted Attractions sent multiple people to the hospital on Halloween night in Denton, shutting down westbound U.S. Highway 380 for hours while crews worked the scene. Denton police say two of the injured were in critical condition, though news outlets have given differing counts of how many people were hurt overall.
Conflicting Injury Counts Emerge
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Denton police said 10 people were injured in the crash, with two listed in critical condition in a weekend update. Fox 4, however, reported that six people were hospitalized with serious injuries following the five-vehicle wreck, which involved a semi-truck. The discrepancy between the two injury tallies has not been publicly reconciled, and Denton police have not issued a single, consolidated count as of this report.
Denton Police and Fire crews responded at approximately 7:29 p.m. Saturday to the crash in the 8400 block of West University Drive near Willow Lane, close to the Parker House Haunted Attractions, according to DFW Scanner. The Star-Telegram reported a response time of approximately 8:30 p.m. and placed the crash at the 8500 block of West University Drive, with officers and firefighters dispatched after two vehicles stopped in the westbound right lane while attempting to turn into the haunted attraction. Police said a third approaching vehicle then struck the rear of one of the stopped cars, pushing it into the left lane, where it was hit by a semitractor-trailer.
Highway Shut Down For Hours
All three westbound lanes of Highway 380 were shut down while authorities cleared the wreckage and investigated, per DFW Scanner's report. The Star-Telegram reported that the westbound lanes reopened shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday, hours after the initial crash. Crash victims were taken to local hospitals, and Denton police said the investigation remained ongoing, with the cause of the crash still under review, according to fox4news.com.
A Known Trouble Spot
The stretch of University Drive and its intersections with Interstate 35 has long been one of Denton's busiest crash corridors. The Denton Record-Chronicle reported that Denton police logged 2,286 crashes with the Texas Department of Transportation between Nov. 6 and Aug. 13, with a heat map showing injury-producing wrecks clustering along I-35 and I-35E near major ramps, including the University Drive exit, as well as the center of University near Locust and Elm streets. Denton Police Sgt. Bryan Cose told the outlet that many of those crashes are tied to backup and congestion where lanes merge near the U.S. 380 exit ramp.
TxDOT data cited by the Record-Chronicle found roughly 56 intersection-related crashes over nine months where University Drive meets Locust, Elm and Carroll Boulevard, plus about 35 crashes near the I-35 ramps along University Drive. NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth previously reported that a separate multi-vehicle crash on U.S. 380 killed one person and injured another, underscoring the corridor's history of serious wrecks. That outlet also noted a $21 million TxDOT project adding a raised median with turn lanes between Loop 288 and U.S. 377.
Denton police have not said whether any citations or charges have resulted from Saturday's crash, and the cause remains under investigation.
