2 KILLED IN FIRST FATAL MILAM WRECK IN 04

(GAUSE)  Two men died Thursday in Milam County’s first fatal traffic accident of 2004 when their car collided head-on with a tanker truck hauling 9,000 gallons of propane.

The passenger in the car was identified as 53-year-old Charles Ellis of Bryan. The driver was 65-year-old Herman Jack Courtney from Madisonville.  Both men were pronounced dead at the scene by Justice of the Peace Twila Harris.

The driver of the truck, 61-year-old James Edens of Brookshire, was treated for minor injuries to his left hand and elbow.

The accident occurred on U.S. 79 a little more than a mile west of Gause when the car, a white four-door Chevrolet Cavalier, tried to pass a tractor-trailer, authorities said.

Sgt. Rick Bryant of the Department of Public Safety said “ Due to the rain, they couldn’t see around the truck, and as soon as they moved out into the lane they encountered the propane truck.”  Bryant said Edens, the driver of the truck, told authorities there was nothing he could do to avoid hitting the car.”

The propane truck traveled across the top of the car and into the shoulder of the westbound lane, then skidded through a ditch and jumped a set of railroad tracks landing upright on the south side of the tracks.

According to investigating Trooper Craig Caden, the driver of the car was not wearing a seat belt, while the passenger was.

Bryant said emergency crews had difficulty locating anything that revealed the men’s identities.

The accident initially was reported to the Rockdale Police Department around 10:45 a.m. and then was referred to the Milam County Sheriff’s Department and DPS.

It was the Brazos Valley’s second weather-related, multiple-fatality accident in two days. On Wednesday morning, a Hearne mother and her three children died when a dump truck broadsided their car along F.M. 2027 in Falls County.

Authorities said 24-year-old Crystal Dawson probably missed a stop sign in the fog and drove into the path of the 18-wheeler.