From the Rockport Pilot
An 81-year-old Rockport man was killed Tuesday, June 3 in an accident on the Copano Bay Causeway which involved four vehicles.
Herman Dabbs, who was traveling southbound on the north side of the hump on the bridge, died from injuries he sustained after being in the wrong place at the wrong time when one northbound motorist attempted to pass two others.
The driver of this Ford Expedition suffered serious injuries in a four-vehicle collision on Copano Causeway Tuesday afternoon. According to DPS Trooper David Cordova, the chain-reaction accident began when the driver of one of the vehicles attempted to pass two other vehicles.
The accident, which was reported at 2:22 p.m., sent one other motorist to the hospital.
It took Department of Public Safety Trooper David Cordova and other DPS personnel almost five hours to investigate the accident and determine exactly what happened and in what order.
Dabbs was driving a 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis. The other vehicles involved and the drivers of those vehicles are a 2006 Ford F-150 pickup, driven by Emilio Cuevas of Corpus Christi; a 1994 Toyota pickup driven by Alfred Sousa of Rockport; and a 2007 Ford Expedition driven by Harvard Newt Noble, 69, of Portland.
Noble was transported to an area hospital via HALO-Flight with serious injuries, including two broken legs and a broken arm.
According to Cordova's report, Dabbs' vehicle was traveling southbound behind a vehicle which was not involved in the accident. The Toyota pickup, the Expedition, and the Ford pickup were northbound in that order.
The chain-reaction accident began when the driver of the Ford pickup attempted to pass the Expedition and the Toyota pickup.
As the Ford pickup passed the two vehicles, the driver of the southbound car in front of Dabbs' Marquis braked to avoid a head-on collision.
Dabbs failed to control his speed and veered left to avoid the vehicle in front of him, steering him into the path of the Ford pickup. Those two vehicles collided front left to front left.
Dabbs' vehicle continued forward out-of-control and struck the Toyota pickup in the area of the pickup's left rear quarter panel. The Toyota pickup then spun counterclockwise and struck the concrete guard rail with its right rear bumper.
The Expedition, which was behind the Toyota pickup, took evasive action to the right and came to rest up on the curb and guard rail, causing damage to the front and rear wheels.
Dabbs' car had spun counter-clockwise and was struck by the Expedition, causing the Expedition to strike the concrete guardrail in the area of its right rear quarter panel.
Dabbs' vehicle then spun around again counterclockwise and struck the northbound concrete guardrail with its right rear bumper before veering back into the southbound lane, stopping on the southbound curb.
The accident detoured traffic for almost five hours. DPS troopers reopened the causeway at about 7 p.m. after the vehicles were removed, the highway cleaned of debris, and the accident investigation was completed.
Charges are pending until the report is complete.
Responding to the scene were the Aransas County EMS, HALO-Flight, DPS, Fulton and Lamar volunteer fire departments, Aransas County Sheriff's Office, and Aransas County animal control.
At the scene it was reported a dog in one of the vehicles survived the accident.