Wrong-way crash closes I-25 near Castle Rock, sends 1 to hospital
A wrong-way Silverado crossed into southbound I-25 near Plum Creek Road, forcing a near-two-hour closure and sending one driver to hospital.
A wrong-way driver turned southbound Interstate 25 into a crash scene north of Castle Rock just after 5 a.m., closing the freeway for nearly two hours and sending one person to a nearby hospital with unknown injuries.
Colorado State Patrol said reports of a wrong-way vehicle came in near milemarker 179 by Plum Creek Road at about 5:12 a.m. Wednesday, May 20. Troopers arriving on scene found a Chevrolet pickup truck and a silver Toyota sedan with extensive damage. 9NEWS reported the pickup was a Silverado traveling northbound in the southbound lanes. It hit the center concrete barrier before striking the Toyota Camry head-on.
One driver was transported to a nearby hospital, while the other was evaluated at the scene and refused transport. The cause of the wrong-way entry remained under investigation. Authorities did not immediately say why the Chevrolet ended up in the southbound lanes of one of Douglas County’s busiest corridors.
Traffic impact was immediate. Colorado Department of Transportation and the Denver Post reported that southbound I-25 was shut down for nearly two hours, with the closure stretching between Exit 182 for Wilcox Street and Exit 181 for Plum Creek Parkway. CBS Colorado said the shutdown extended farther south, between Exit 181 at Plum Creek Parkway and Exit 174 at Tomah Road. State Patrol later said the roadway reopened shortly before 7 a.m., with another report putting the reopening at about 6:53 a.m.
The crash was brief, but its effect rippled through the morning commute in Castle Rock and the southern part of Douglas County, where I-25 serves as the region’s main travel artery. The incident also fit a larger safety pattern that State Patrol has been tracking closely. Troopers responded to 116 wrong-way crashes in 2024, a 19.5% increase from 2023, and had already handled 58 such crashes by mid-2025. State Patrol has said head-on collisions are among the most violent and deadly crash types, and it has urged drivers to expect the unexpected if they encounter a wrong-way vehicle on the road.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
