As traffic stacks up for miles on IH-35, emergency workers respond to a four-vehicle wreck on Memorial Day. (Photo by Jen Biundo)

by JEN BIUNDO

A motorist erratically driving a pickup truck down IH-35 while hauling a boat triggered two separate accidents just before noon on Memorial Day, sending one man to the hospital, say investigators with the Texas Department of Public Safety. The pickup truck driver did not stop at the scene of the wreck.

Just before the RM 967 exit between Buda and Kyle on the northbound lanes, the truck swerved and slammed on the brakes, causing a chain reaction. A Nissan Pathfinder struck a Mercury Mistique, sending the Mercury into the retaining wall. And in another lane, a Mazda LX 626 hit a Subaru Tribeca.

The driver of the Mazda was transported to Brackenridge Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, said emergency personnel on the scene.

Bridgitte Richardson, a student who had been traveling from San Marcos in the Subaru with two friends, said they had watched the truck driving erratically for several miles, with the boat entering other lanes of traffic and cutting off other motorists.

“He had been swerving around the whole highway,” said Richardson, who was shaken but not injured in the wreck.

Her friend Matthew Fiorillo, who was driving the Subaru, said he believed the pickup truck was green in color, towing an orange and white wake-boarding boat.

DPS investigators on the scene said they hadn’t determined if any other drivers would be ticketed. As of Tuesday, the driver of the pick-up truck had not been located. Anyone with information about the wreck is asked to call the Hays County Sheriff’s Office at 393-7896.

Last Memorial Day, DPS troopers arrested 622 drunk drivers.