'Just one of those days'
Grants police respond to 3 accidents in three hours

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Grants police made one DWI arrest, responded tothree accidents with four injuries involving six vehicles and issued eight citations all within a three-hour time frame on Wednesday.

The accidents occurred at 12:42 p.m., 2:40 p.m. and 3:35 p.m., at the intersection of Roosevelt and Washington, on Roosevelt in front of the Grants Cemetery and at 1000 E. Santa Fe Ave., in front of the Southwest Motel, said Grants Police Lt. Maxine Spidle.

Failure to yield
The first accident of the day involved a pickup truck and a car. A small child sustained a cut on a knee, but the mother, the driver of one of the two vehicles refused medical treatment.

Joseph Rivera, 16, of a post office box in Milan, was cited for failure to yield the right of way.

Rivera was driving westbound on Washington and failed to yield to the car driven by Lee Ann Houston.

Rivera turned at the stop sign in front of Houston and her car struck his pickup truck in the intersection, Spidle said.

"If the daughter had not been in her car seat with a seat belt, she could have been thrown around inside the car and even ejected," Spidle said.

She said Houston had the child properly and securely fastened in an appropriate car seat.

No driver's license
At 2:40 p.m., Wayne Duran, 55, of 1700 block of Cordova; Joshua Martinez, 21, of the 200 block of Warren and Gilbert Lopez, 55, of a post office box in Milan all in one vehicle stopped to turn into Grants Cemetery on Roosevelt, Spidle said.

Horacio Trujillo, 28, of the 100 block of Lincoln, struck Duran's car from behind as it was stopped, waiting on oncoming traffic and preparing to turn, she said.

Trujillo was cited for following too closely and no driver's license.

Duran, Martinez and Lopez went to Cibola General Hospital in a private vehicle complaining of soreness and back and neck injuries, according to a Grants Police report.

The hospital did not return a call inquiring whether any or all of the three were seriously hurt and/or admitted.

Aggravated DWI, no license
The final accident of the day, at 3:35 p.m., occurred on East Santa Fe Avenue when Robert Holiday, 43, of a post office box in Milan, turned in front of an oncoming vehicle driven by Maxine Ramirez-Brown, 36, of Coyote Canyon, no address available, Spidle said.

Holiday left the scene and was found minutes later at the Sailfish Lounge where he was arrested and transported to the police department. He tested more than .16 on the breathalyzer, resulting in an aggravated DWI charge.

Police also charged him with no driver's license, no registration, no insurance, leaving the scene of an accident and having another vehicle's license plates on his car.

"The plates were not stolen, they were just from another vehicle," Spidle said. Neither driver was injured.

She said there were no connecting factors to the three accidents in such a short time period.

"It was just one of those days," she said.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197, or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.