Male driver dead, following crash off U.S. 77 in north Beatrice
Southbound auto went off highway to the east, hitting a tree
BEATRICE – The driver of a car traveling U.S. Highway 77 in north Beatrice died Saturday afternoon when his vehicle left the highway and struck a tree.
Beatrice Fire and Rescue and Police were sent to the accident location….about a quarter-mile north of Highway 77 and Sargent Road, at one-thirty p.m.
A police sergeant on scene said it appears the car was southbound on the divided highway, crossing the median for an unknown reason. The vehicle went up onto an area of grass and struck a tree in the front yard of a home located along a frontage road.
The driver was unresponsive at the scene and was trapped in the vehicle. Fire and Rescue personnel extricated the man from the car and he was taken to the nearby Beatrice Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police identified the fatality victim as 63-year-old Curtis J. Hansen, of Beatrice.
A witness beside the vehicle who was stopped at a traffic light alongside the car observed it accelerate quickly from the southbound east lane. The car drifted right, then left and crossed the median. Two witnesses traveling northbound saw the car crash into the tree, with the impact uprooting the tree. The car came to rest just a few feet from the house at that location.
No other vehicles were involved in the accident and no one else was injured.