Police investigate fatal crash near Buffalo Thunder

Sheriff’s office says alcohol not involved

The Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office says it doesn’t believe alcohol was a contributing factor in a fatal crash Friday afternoon on U.S. 84/285, which closed the highway in both directions and backed up traffic for hours in the Pojoaque area.

The crash happened just north of the Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino around 3:30 p.m., when a northbound Chrysler Sebring lost control and crossed into oncoming traffic, hitting a southbound Acura head-on and killing the driver, according to Juan Ríos, a spokesman for the Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office. The Acura then ran into a Volkswagen Jetta.

The Sebring’s speed is suspected to be a factor in the crash, Ríos said, adding that the 18-year-old driver of the

Sebring and his juvenile passenger were not wearing seat belts, and were ejected from the convertible sedan. Ríos was not certain whether the car’s top was down at the time.

Both passengers in the Sebring were taken to area hospitals for treatment. Ríos did not identify the individuals, but a post on the Facebook page of Española church The Rock Christian Fellowship identified the youths as Greg Naranjo, the pastor’s son, and grandson Elias Arellano.

On Saturday morning, the church wrote that the boys “are making tremendous progress and receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained in the accident.”

The driver of the Acura, who was the only person killed in the three-car crash, had not been publicly identified by the sheriff ’s office as of Saturday. Neither had the woman’s passenger, who was transported to University of New Mexico Hospital in critical condition Friday evening. The two occupants of the Jetta were not seriously injured, Ríos said.

Though the accident occurred in midafternoon, roadways were not entirely reopened until after 10 p.m. Some drivers took to social media during and after the incident to vent their frustration that information related to the crash was not widely available.

“We had family members who waited 4 hours in the wreck yesterday and there was no information about what had happened, where exactly the accident was, or how to get around it,” one person commented on The New Mexican’s news story about the crash.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office does not regularly post crash information on its website or on social media, Ríos said. Instead, it uses a text-based alert system called Nixle. The first Nixle alert related to the accident went out at 3:30 p.m., and updates weren’t posted until much later, when roads were beginning to clear.

Ríos said people who want to receive emergency alerts should sign up for the Nixle system through the sheriff ’s office website at www.santafecountynm. gov/sheriff.