Deer Lodge man dies, 2 Flathead residents hospitalized after crash near Marion
A Montana Highway Patrol vehicle is seen with its lights on in this file photo. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)
A Deer Lodge man died and two Flathead Valley residents were hospitalized Monday after a two-vehicle crash on U.S. 2 near Marion.
According to the Montana Highway Patrol, a 32-year-old man driving west in a 2004 Chrysler Sebring sped past a vehicle in a no-passing zone and struck a 1998 Dodge pickup with a trailer head-on just after 2 p.m.
The car went off the right side of the road, while the truck rolled down an embankment.
The Deer Lodge man driving the car was not wearing a seat belt and died at the scene.
The driver of the Dodge truck, a 23-year-old Kalispell man, and his passenger, a 23-year-old Whitefish woman, both were injured and taken to Logan Health Medical Center.
Another passenger in the truck, a 4-year-old girl from Whitefish, was not injured. All three occupants of the truck were wearing seat belts.
According to Trooper Thomas Manz, drugs and excessive speed were suspected factors in the crash.
The fatality was the 151st on Montana roads in 2021.