Construction zone where man crashed and died seen as headache by other drivers

22-year-old driver likely didn’t see construction barrels, police say

SAN ANTONIO – A North Side construction zone where a driver died after losing control of his car and crashing is seen as a headache by at least one other driver.

The area is along Wetmore Road just north of Wurzbach Parkway.

“Day to day, it’s crazy,” said Salvatore Carnevale, who lives nearby. “If you’re driving and not used to this area, you could wind up on the same lane as someone else and that’s a head-on collision right there.”

Driver dies after losing control of car in construction zone, hitting tree, police say

Accident investigators spent about two hours working to understand how the crash happened. (KSAT 12 News)

Cones and barrels that are set up block all northbound lanes of Wetmore in that immediate area, forcing the northbound traffic to utilize one of the southbound lanes.

As a result, southbound traffic is reduced to only one lane there.

San Antonio police say a 22-year-old man was driving in the section of that construction zone where five lanes of traffic suddenly are narrowed down to only two.

It appears the driver didn’t notice the construction barrels until it was too late, according to one investigator at the scene.

The car plowed through a fence and hit a tree in the backyard of a home. (KSAT 12 News)

The man’s car veered across all lanes of traffic, jumped a sidewalk and crashed through the backyard fence of a home.

It then hit a tree, causing the death of the driver, who police say was not wearing a seatbelt.

They say they found him badly injured, tossed into the passengers’ seat.

The man, whose name was not released right away, died later at a hospital.

“At night, it’s pretty dark. So the cones are not really set up correctly,” Carnevale said, detailing his frustrations with the construction zone.

Accident investigators spent about two hours there, trying to understand what went wrong for the driver who was killed.

They shut down Wetmore Road in both directions, between Wurzbach Parkway and Ridge Country Street, while they investigated.


About the Authors:

Katrina Webber joined KSAT 12 in December 2009. She reports for Good Morning San Antonio. Katrina was born and raised in Queens, NY, but after living in Gulf Coast states for the past decade, she feels right at home in Texas. It's not unusual to find her singing karaoke or leading a song with her church choir when she's not on-air.

Tim has been a photojournalist and video editor at KSAT since 1998. He came to San Antonio from Lubbock, where he worked in TV and earned his bachelor's degree in Electronic Media and Communication from Texas Tech University. Tim has won a handful of awards and has earned a master's in Strategic Communication and Innovation from Tech as well.