One killed in Poweshiek County semi crash

One person died Thursday in Poweshiek County after being hit by a semi-truck while stopped on the side of Interstate 80, according to a crash report from the Iowa State Patrol.

Brenton Fregia, 55, of Troutman, N.C., had been driving a pickup truck east on the interstate Thursday, escorting a semi-truck with an oversize load, when the semi blew a trailer tire and pulled over to park on the shoulder near mile marker 185. Fregia parked his truck behind the semi and got out to look at the semi’s blown tire.

While Fregia was working on the tire, another eastbound semi-truck crashed into the pickup and the back of the semi Fregia was working on. Fregia sustained fatal injuries in the crash. He was transported by ambulance to UnityPoint Grinnell Hospital, but ultimately died.

Another person, Christina Marie Leeth, 48, of Onalaska, Texas, was also injured in the crash and taken to UnityPoint. Leeth was not the driver of either semi, and the report does not state if she was a passenger in either, but she is from the same city as the driver of the semi Fregia was accompanying — Gerald Mayfield, 76, of Onalaska, Texas.

Mayfield and the driver of the other semi — Larry Comstock, 66, of Stronghurst, Ill. — were not injured in the crash.

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