The Bayfield Marshal's Office is continuing to investigate a Dec. 30 rear-end crash on Bayfield Parkway at the Buck Highway intersection. Fifty-two year old Leon Newman died on Jan. 1 after he was rear-ended.
Very quickly after the crash, he complained of a headache, quickly progressing to dizziness and then everything "looking like shattered glass," his father, Pastor James Newman, told the Times last week.
Leon was stopped to make a left turn onto the Buck Highway when he was rear-ended so hard that his hat ended up in the back of the vehicle, his father said.
Bayfield Marshal Joe McIntyre told the Times on Wednesday that they were waiting for a coroner's report and final autopsy results. Coroner Jann Smith requested the autopsy, he said.
The younger Newman was airlifted from Mercy Medical Center to San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington on Dec. 30 and died there on Jan. 1. He never regained consciousness, his father said. An autopsy was supposed to have been done in New Mexico, but it wasn't.
Asked if the other driver might have been doing something like texting, McIntyre said, "At this point, the only thing I can say is the driver said he wasn't paying attention. He didn't see the other driver stop."
Initially the driver who rear-ended Leon Newman was cited for careless driving, but that's under review, McIntyre said.
