Swaledale boy killed in grain truck accident

Area residents are morning the death of a young boy following a grain truck accident Nov. 1 near the Five Star Co-Op on Main Street in Swaledale.

     Devlin Obregon, 7, was playing alongside the road with friends around 6:43 p.m. when the accident occurred. According to a preliminary investigation by the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff’s Office, Obregon and other children were running alongside grain trucks and attempting to get them to honk their horns as they pulled into the elevator. Cerro Gordo County Sheriff Kevin Pals said Obregon apparently got too close to a truck driven by Robert Quinlan, 37, of Rockwell, and was hit when Quinlan turned into the elevator from the north.

     The investigation is ongoing, but Pals said it appears Obregon was running in Quinlan’s blind spot and wasn’t visible to him when he made the turn.

     “Everyone’s going to want answers about why this seven-year-old in Swaledale died after getting hit by a grain truck,” Pals said. “But that’s why they call them accidents. It’s just a terrible situation to even be in.”

Read the full article in the Nov. 7 edition of the papers.