Two St. Joseph residents were taken to St. Cloud Hospital by ambulance after a two-vehicle crash Sunday morning near road construction tied to the new Stearns County Justice Center. The Stearns County Sheriff's Office was dispatched to the intersection of County Road 75 and County Road 134 at around 9:45 a.m. Mary Backes, 75, and her passenger, Thomas Backes, 74, both of St. Joseph, were injured when their SUV collided with another vehicle at the intersection.
According to WJON, the crash began when 50-year-old Nuria Abdinur Turane of St. Cloud turned onto County Road 134 and found it closed for construction. Turane then turned around to re-enter County Road 75, pulling out in front of Mary Backes's westbound SUV, and the two vehicles collided. Turane declined medical treatment at the scene and was cited for failing to yield the right of way.
Mary and Thomas Backes were both taken by ambulance to St. Cloud Hospital for treatment. Minnesota law is explicit on the maneuver at the center of the citation: under Minnesota Statute 169.20, a driver entering or crossing a roadway from somewhere other than another roadway must yield the right-of-way to all vehicles approaching on the roadway being entered.
Road Work Behind the Closure
County Road 134 has been closed for construction connected to the new Stearns County Justice Center, and the closure appears to be what set Sunday's chain of events in motion. Reports on when that work will wrap up have varied. The station's report on the construction impacts said the project was scheduled to last until the end of October, weather permitting, while a separate report from KNSI said Stearns County expected the work to wrap up by the middle of November, again depending on weather. KNSI reported that C & L Excavating of St. Joseph is the contractor on the job.
Not the First Crash at This Corner
The intersection of County Road 75 and County Road 134 has seen trouble before. Back in February 2017, the St. Cloud Times reported that two drivers were taken to St. Cloud Hospital after a crash at the same corner around 6:40 a.m., in which a vehicle traveling east on County Road 75 was turning north onto County Road 134 when it was struck by a westbound SUV. In that earlier case, the SUV driver, 22-year-old Lawanza Montgomery of St. Paul, fled the scene on foot and was later found by St. Joseph police officers near the American Burger Bar. That incident remains a single comparable case rather than evidence of a broader pattern at the intersection.
