Iron River man dies in three-vehicle crash on M-28

An Iron River family lost a loved one and a familiar Upper Peninsula highway once again turned deadly Sunday afternoon, when a 67-year-old Iron River man died in a three-vehicle crash on M-28 in Covington Township. Another person suffered minor injuries, and Baraga County sheriff’s officials were investigating what happened near Pirkola Road.

The crash was reported about 2:30 p.m. Sunday on the Baraga County stretch of M-28 and involved a tractor-trailer, according to the information released. Even with the details still limited, the scene carried the kind of hard weight that small communities across the western U.P. know too well: one fatality, one injury and a routine drive that ended in tragedy.

For Iron County residents, the loss lands close to home because M-28 is one of the region’s key travel routes, linking communities for work, family visits, shopping and medical appointments. The highway also carries heavier commercial traffic, and crashes that involve large trucks can become especially severe when they happen on rural roads with long stretches, changing weather and limited room to recover from a mistake.

The Michigan Department of Transportation is already spending about $7.2 million to resurface more than 21 miles of M-28 in Baraga and Houghton counties, from the Houghton/Ontonagon county line to Leo South Road. That work underscores how central the corridor is to daily life in the western U.P. and how much pressure it carries from both local drivers and freight traffic.

Michigan State Police say the state’s crash-reporting system processes about 315,000 crashes each year, and those reports are used by safety partners to spot traffic problems and reduce crashes, deaths and injuries. Transportation officials also note that reports can take 3 to 30 days to move into the statewide database, which means the first account of a crash is often only the beginning of the picture.

The broader numbers remain sobering. The 2024 Michigan Annual Drunk Driving Audit found that alcohol- and drug-related fatal crashes accounted for about 40.7% of traffic crash fatalities in Michigan. And Iron County has already seen another fatal crash this spring, when a separate wreck on U.S. 141 near Offerman Road in Hematite Township left one person dead in April.

For drivers heading through Baraga County, the message is plain enough. M-28 remains a vital road, but Sunday’s crash showed how quickly a trip can turn catastrophic when vehicles, speed, road conditions and heavy traffic share the same narrow margin for error.