Two people are dead and two more were seriously injured Tuesday evening when their all-terrain vehicle crashed on a county road north of Silverton, authorities said.
The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office the wreck happened on Corkscrew Pass near County Road 110 at about 5:15 p.m.
The sheriff’s office says Gary Adkinson was driving a vehicle carrying his wife, LaNita, their son, Bryson, and their son-in-law Ryan King when the ATV’s brakes failed. The ATV left the roadway “at a high rate of speed,” officials say, and rolled about 75 feet down an embankment.
Gary and LaNita Adkinson were flown by helicopter to Mercy Medical Center in Durango and to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood with extensive injuries.
Bryson Adkinson, 26, and King, 35, died at the scene of the crash, authorities say.
According to the sheriff’s office, the crash happened as the group was descending from the mountains and that they had been having transmission problems before the wreck. They were attempting to “coast” down the road, officials say their initial investigation found.
The crash happened near Gladstone, several miles north of Silverton, according to .
The four were visiting from Nacogdoches, Texas, about 150 miles northeast of Houston.
Authorities say the group were in the Silverton area with the wives and three small children of Bryson Adkinson and Ryan.
“The ladies described their husbands as loving fathers and are praying for the recovery of their parents,” the sheriff’s office said. “Our thoughts are with you, Adkinsons and Kings.”
