Two serious Foxhome crashes send drivers to hospitals Sunday

Two serious crashes in Foxhome on Sunday sent two drivers to hospitals and drew a coordinated response from several local agencies. One happened just before 2 p.m. at County Road 19 and 380th Street, and the other followed around 5:30 p.m. on Highway 210 near town.

In the first crash, an SUV traveling north on County Road 19 collided with a sedan heading east on 380th Street at the intersection. The SUV driver, 32-year-old Alyssa Budke of Tintah, was taken to Lake Region Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Her juvenile passengers were not hurt, and the people in the sedan were also not injured.

Hours later, another crash on Highway 210 near Foxhome turned into a head-on collision between an SUV and a sedan. The sedan driver, 46-year-old Rachel Kercher of Wahpeton, suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries and was airlifted to Sanford Hospital in Fargo. The SUV driver was not hurt.

Minnesota State Patrol is investigating both crashes. The Foxhome Fire Department, St. Francis Ambulance, Wilkin County Sheriff’s Office, Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office, Breckenridge Fire Department and Sanford AirMed all assisted at the scenes. The back-to-back calls put a small community of just 126 people, as counted in the 2020 census, under a public safety spotlight for the day.

Foxhome sits on Highway 210 between Fergus Falls and Breckenridge, a stretch that carries both local traffic and travelers moving through Wilkin County. Sunday’s crashes showed how quickly that mix can turn a rural intersection or highway segment into an emergency scene, especially when one collision involves children and another requires an air transport.

The crashes also come against a broader traffic safety backdrop. Minnesota Department of Transportation says its Rural Intersection Conflict Warning System was developed to cut fatal and serious-injury crashes at rural non-signalized intersections, and the state has deployed it at high-crash-risk locations. Crash data tracked by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Office of Traffic Safety are used to show who is hurt, where crashes happen and why they occur, information that can guide prevention efforts.

Nationally, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated 39,345 traffic deaths in 2024, a reminder that even crashes that do not turn fatal can carry lasting consequences for families, first responders and small towns like Foxhome.