Driver climbed through windshield after 100mph rollover, police report

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Dilley police examine the wreckage of a pickup truck on the IH-35 access road at the northern outskirts of town shortly after 4:40 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 7, and have reported the driver may have left the interstate at 100 miles per hour before losing control of the vehicle.

A driver escaped serious injury and was able to extract himself from the wreckage of his pickup truck after a pre-dawn rollover on the outskirts of Dilley on January 7, according to police.
Identified only as an adult from Cotulla, the driver was not cited after the crash and was taken by privately owned vehicle from the scene to Frio Regional Hospital in Pearsall. Dilley police officers reporting on the incident shortly after 4:40 a.m. Thursday noted that the man appeared to have sustained lacerations from windows breaking in the rollover.
According to the police report on the case, the driver had lost control of the modified 2016 Ford pickup truck after attempting to leave the northbound lanes of IH-35 at an estimated hundred miles per hour.
“The driver admitted to police that he had been traveling at that speed when he took the exit ramp,” Dilley PD Sgt. Angel Esparza said of the crash. “He lost control of the vehicle in the exit ramp curve, and it rolled over at least once.”
According to the Dilley Police Department, two officers on routine patrol had seen the pickup truck traveling north on the interstate at a high rate of speed and attempted to intercept it.
Dilley PD Cpl. Adrian Ruiz and Ofc. Eric Luna drove from the south- to northbound side of the interstate via an emergency service crossover and reached Exit 86 to find that the vehicle they had seen moments earlier had crashed and was lying on its left side at the edge of the east-side access road.
“The driver had broken through the shattered windshield to climb out of the cab,” Sgt. Esparza said. “He was standing beside the vehicle when the officers arrived.”
Assisting police at the scene were troopers of the Texas Highway Patrol, the Dilley Volunteer Fire Department, and paramedics who offered first aid.
“There was no indication that alcohol played a part in this incident,” Sgt. Esparza said. “The driver was fortunate to sustain only minor injuries. The vehicle was registered to his father. This was a pickup truck that had a lifted suspension, making it ride higher. This may also have made the vehicle top-heavy and unstable in a curve at any speed.
“The principal factors in this crash appear to have been the driver’s apparently reckless speed, a possible distraction, and his subsequent loss of control of the vehicle,” the sergeant said.
Road closure was in effect for approximately an hour during the accident investigation and clean-up. The damaged vehicle was removed by Perry Alvarez Towing.