ST. GEORGE – With regret for the misinformation, the story published this morning, headlined “Fatal rollover adds to incidence of tragedies during storm,” is retracted.
At 11:07 a.m. St. George News received a narrative of the accident with photos from Utah Highway Patrol spokesman Jesse Velasquez; the report came as a continuation of information provided by UHP on traffic incidents July 20 when Washington County was hit with a heavy storm.
Information was slow in coming to him, Velasquez said Saturday, because the two UHP troopers responsible for the southern corridor were kept busy with multiple incidents.
In this morning’s report, the vehicle involved was described as a Jeep Cherokee. In a similar report published July 15, Fatal rollover on Interstate 15, it was a Jeep Liberty.
On request for reconfirmation of the report, Velasquez investigated and discovered that he had been supplied an old accident report in the collection of reports on multiple incidents. It was in fact a report on the July 15 accident.
“I reached out for anything associated with the storms,” Velasquez said, “and efficiency being efficiency I thought I would pass it on to media.”
All media to whom the report was issued have been contacted, he said, and an apology letter from UHP would be forthcoming.
St. George News is in communication with family members of the woman lost in Monday’s accident.
In light of the retraction, the electronic report published this morning has has been entirely removed from our site.
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Twitter: @JoyceKuzmanic
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.
Thanks for the correction and thanks for everyone involved simply acknowledging a mistake and taking responsibility for it. I’m very sorry for the loss of life. An apparent second tragedy pointed out the need to drive carefully on that one stretch of I-15 and to wear a seat belt. Thankfully, we can have these valuable lessons reinforced, but without the loss of additional life.