No criminal charges will be filed stemming from the 70-car pileup on Interstate 70 at Vail Pass that killed a Longmont man.
Colorado State Patrol investigators have determined that the wreckage involved three chain-reaction events on March 31 in the westbound lanes of the highway.
The initial wreck happened at 2:05 p.m., the state patrol said, followed by another series of collisions at 2:15 p.m. and a third round at 2:20 p.m.
Lance Melting, 39, who was driving a 2007 Blue Kia Sedona, died in the second series of collisions. It involved 11 vehicles and had the most serious injuries, the state patrol said.
Melting, a father of four and a special education teacher at Heritage Middle School in Longmont, was taking his family on a spring break trip to Disneyland in Southern California.
His minivan crashed into a tractor-trailer that had jackknifed across the snow-covered highway.
His wife, Jaime Lathrop-Melting, 39, suffered serious injuries in the crash. Their four children were not injured.
The first wreck involved about 30 vehicles and 12 injuries — ranging from moderate to minor. The third series of crashes, near the summit of Vail Pass, involved about 29 vehicles. No injuries were reported in the third wave, the state patrol said.
The accidents are still under investigation, and “adverse weather” conditions were the “most likely factor,” the state patrol said.
Alcohol or drugs are not suspected as contributing to the massive pileups, and no charges are expected to be filed in the case, the state patrol said.
Three people, a 43-year-old mother, Tina Rosati, of Grand Junction and her two daughters, ages 15 and 11, were injured when they were hit after they got out of their car and tried to scramble to safety, the state patrol said.
A heavy spring storm dropped more than 10 inches of wet, slippery snow on the pass the day of the massive pileups.
The highway and pass shut down completely for several hours the day of the accidents, affecting traffic from west of the Eisenhower Tunnel to Eagle, about a 50-mile span.
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
