Two fatal accidents over weekend on same stretch of Texas 29
FROM STAFF REPORTS
LLANO — Wet weather could be to blame in a one-vehicle rollover Nov. 21 that killed a Nolanville man on Texas 29 in Llano County, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Two days later, a Burnet man died in an accident involving a motorcycle on the same stretch of roadway.
The Nov. 21 accident happened at 7:37 p.m. about 2½ miles east of Llano.
The DPS report stated that 20-year-old Derek Steffek of Marble Falls was driving a 2004 Dodge pickup eastbound on Texas 29 when the pickup hydroplaned and left the roadway.
“(The pickup) entered a curve, went into a side skid. … (The) driver overcorrected to the south, causing (the) vehicle to roll left to right several times on (the) north side of (an) unimproved shoulder,” according to the report. “(The) driver failed to drive at (a) safe speed for road conditions, which were wet.”
The passenger, Ethan Turner, 22, of Nolanville was “unsecured and ejected” during the rollover.
Turner was pronounced dead at 11:02 p.m. at Llano Memorial Hospital by Dr. Paul Carstens.
Steffek was treated and released from Llano Memorial Hospital.
Visitation for Turner is 5-7 p.m. Nov. 25 at Clements-Wilcox Funeral Home, 1805 U.S. 281 in Marble Falls.
A funeral service is 1 p.m. Nov. 26 at the funeral home with burial to follow at Smithwick Cemetery, located 11 miles east of Marble Falls on RR 1431.
On Nov. 23, Shaun Hazel, 48, of Burnet died after he crashed his Harley Davidson motorcycle into a ditch at 10:24 p.m. on Texas 29 about 2½ miles west of Burnet, according to DPS.
The driver “drove off the roadway into a curve and crashed in a ditch,” a DPS report stated.
Hazel was pronounced dead at 11:31 p.m. at Seton Highland Lakes hospital in Burnet by Dr. Julie Wachtel.
An autopsy is pending with Travis County Medical Examiner’s office.
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