The following is a statement Thursday morning from the Lubbock Police Department.
LPD Investigates Serious Motorcycle Crash
(LUBBOCK, TX) – Accident Investigators with the Lubbock Police Department are investigating a single vehicle crash that resulted in life-threatening injuries for the passenger and an arrest of the driver.
Just before midnight at 11:56 p.m. on December 13th, officers received a call of a motorcycle accident on the West Loop 289 access road near 41st Street.
Officers located the female passenger, 43-year-old Tracie Scofield, with life threatening injuries. She was taken by ambulance to University Medical Center where she remains in critical conditional.
Officers on scene arrested the driver, 38-year-old Jody Jones, for intoxication assault.
Due to the severity of the passenger’s injuries, officers with the Accident Investigation Unit responded to the scene. Through their initial investigation, it appears the motorcycle was traveling northbound in the 4100 block of the West Loop 289 access road in the right lane. Preliminary information indicates the motorcycle was in a turn only lane and struck a concrete median as it continued traveling north.
The female passenger was thrown from the motorcycle when the motorcycle collided with the median.
Accident Investigators will temporarily shut down all northbound traffic Thursday morning on the West Loop 289 access road between Marsha Sharp Freeway and 34th Street to continue their investigation. The access road will be shut down from 10 a.m. to approximately noon.
This case remains under investigation by the LPD Accident Investigation Unit.
(Press release from Lubbock Police)
EverythingLubbock.com spoke to a witness of the accident scene.
“It was kind of the craziest thing I’ve seen,” Brandon Key said. “I saw a guy getting resuscitated in the middle of the street. It was really kind of eerie.”
He rides motorcycles as well, and said he was shaken up after what he saw.
“Anytime you have somebody else in your vehicle or on your motorcycle you want to be responsible for them, but just try to be cautious.”
But Key said, at this turn, drivers have to be extra cautious. He says he’s heartbroken by what he saw, and he wants other drivers to be aware of this intersection that he believes is dangerous, especially in the dark
“Being a rider, I’ve driven past this same spot at night. The median doesn’t stick up enough and it’s not lit up enough there,” Key said.
He added one time he even almost got in an accident there.
“I knew it was there, but I was just riding and all the sudden I came across that concrete, and I was fortunate enough to get out of the way, I saw it in time to get out of the way, but I think its a matter that needs to be looked at.”
He says accidents like this one make him think twice before climbing on his bike.
“My son, you know he is 16, and I can’t imagine me just enjoying my motorcycle ride, and whether it’s my fault or another driver’s, if something like that happening, and me just being gone,” Key said. “Seeing that last night and seeing him getting his chest pumped is kind of a wake-up to me, like wow, that’s for real.”
