A head-on collision southeast of Calistoga injured three people Tuesday morning and shut down both lanes of Highway 29/128, with two of the victims requiring extrication from the wreckage before crews could get them out. The crash tied up the key wine country corridor for roughly an hour and a half before it reopened shortly after 9 a.m.
According to the Napa Valley Register, the California Highway Patrol’s incident log reported the crash at 7:36 a.m. north of Bale Lane, involving a Chevrolet pickup truck and a 2003 Acura TL sedan. The California Highway Patrol reported that three people were injured in the head-on collision, with two sustaining major injuries and requiring extrication from the wreck. Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit reported that the third suffered only minor injuries. CHP officers requested both air and ground ambulances to the scene as the roadway remained blocked in both directions.
How the Injured Were Taken From the Scene
Per a Facebook post cited by the same report, the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit said one patient was flown to a hospital, a second was transported by ambulance, and a third was treated at the scene. Cal Fire reported that the third patient suffered only minor injuries, consistent with the California Highway Patrol’s account of the crash’s toll. The Napa Valley Register report was credited to a city editor.
Highway 29 was closed following the crash and did not reopen until shortly after 9 a.m., leaving commuters and wine country traffic delayed during the roughly hour-and-a-half closure. The corridor has seen repeated serious crashes over the years, underscoring persistent safety concerns on the stretch linking Calistoga to the rest of Napa Valley.
A Stretch With a History of Serious Wrecks
This is not the first time the area has seen a violent head-on crash. A February 3 collision north of Calistoga left both drivers hospitalized with major injuries, according to the California Highway Patrol, as reported by the Napa Valley Register. That crash occurred at about 12:30 p.m. on Highway 29 north of Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, when a Scion tC driven by 76-year-old Marshall Baines crossed the double-yellow center lines, for reasons under investigation, into the path of a Chevrolet Silverado pickup driven by 52-year-old Rosalie Martin…