Migdalia Hernandez Injured in Truck Accident in Denton, TX
Denton, TX — October 24, 2023, Migdalia Hernandez was injured as the result of a semi-truck accident at around 2:43 p.m. along East Sherman Road.
Authorities said that the accident took place in the area of the East Sherman Road (F.M. 428) and Elm Bottom Circle.
Officials said that 45-year-old Migdalia Hernandez was in a Chevy Avalanche said to be going northbound on Sherman. From southbound lanes, it appears a tractor-trailer somehow lost control, and the truck entered northbound lanes where the truck and Hernandez's vehicle collided.
Due to the collision, Hernandez sustained incapacitating injuries while the commercial truck reportedly had non-incapacitating injuries. Right now, authorities have only said that failure to control speed is a suspected contributing factor. No charges have been confirmed.
If it turned out unsafe speeds were to blame for what happened here, it wouldn't be too surprising. It's usually the cause of someone losing control on wet roads. But experience with commercial vehicle accidents teaches that the easy answer, even if it's correct, might not be the only one. Let me give an example.
I handled a truck wreck not long ago where a truck driver broke down on the highway, blocked lanes of travel, and ultimately caused a serious accident. He failed to put out cones or flares as truck drivers are required to do, and people got hurt as a result. We could have just stopped there, but we wanted to know the whole story.
As it turned out, the driver's employer also made a serious mistake. The mechanical issue that led to the crash was the result of months of neglected maintenance. The company just kept kicking the can down the road hoping they could avoid paying for repairs, and instead they let a ticking time bomb go off that nearly got someone killed.
So when a crash like this comes to my attention, it'd be easy enough to just take the police statements at face value and move on. Instead, I can't help thinking back to past examples I've seen of important details slipping through the cracks: Did the truck have bald tires? Was the driver on their phone? Are they properly trained? Were they rushing to meet an unreasonable deadline their boss was pressuring them to meet? These are just a few examples.
There may not be anything unusual about this situation, of course, and perhaps authorities have already been asking questions like these. Otherwise, though, experience tells me it's unlikely this current information is telling the whole story.
