KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas — A trucker has been arrested in connection with a crash that killed five people and injured several others in a major crash that shut down Interstate 20 near Terrell on Saturday.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Alexis Osmani Gonzalez-Companioni, 27, has been charged with five counts of manslaughter and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Gonzalez-Companioni was Allegedly Asleep at the Wheel
Gonzalez-Companioni was allegedly driving a truck-tractor when he fell asleep while driving and crashed into a Ford F-150 with five people inside.
The crash occurred in the westbound lanes of I-20 just east of Hiram Road. Multiple 911 calls reporting the major crash involving several vehicles, including three semi-trucks, prompted a large emergency response from multiple agencies, including the Elmo and City of Terrell fire departments.
When crews arrived on the scene, they found seven vehicles involved, including three 18-wheelers and four passenger vehicles.
According to DPS, a preliminary investigation revealed that traffic on the highway was backed up due to a previous crash before the incident.
The truck-tractor then pushed into two other 18-wheelers, causing one to jackknife and hit a Jeep Compass, a Ford Mustang and a Honda.
According to Texas DPS, one of the people inside the Ford F-150 was taken to the hospital in Dallas via care flight, and the other four were pronounced dead at the scene. DPS said the person who was inside the Jeep Compass also died at the scene.
Terrell Volunteer Fire Department added that several more people involved had “less severe injuries.”
This is an on-going investigation.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
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This is the result of electronic logs in my opinion, I was a long distance truck driver from the mid 70s until I retired early this year, when they changed the laws I tried to comply but it was next to impossible because of other circumstances that you cannot control like spending hours at the docks loading and unloading, so I got job driving an older model truck that didn’t require them to finish my career.
How did ELDs make this driver fall asleep and crash into stopped traffic???