Two crashes Monday along Highway 95 send at least four to area hospitals

Two women and two children were rushed to various area hospitals Monday evening when two unrelated collisions occurred almost simultaneously at two different intersections along State Highway 95 between Shiner and Moulton.
The first and by most accounts, the far more serious of the two accidents Monday night, happened at the intersection of FM 340 and Highway 95, where a man in a truck, for reasons unknown, reportedly struck a woman in a much smaller vehicle broadside, causing her to lose control, leave the roadway and roll her vehicle at least once.
The woman also had two small children riding with her at the time of the crash. Emergency radio traffic initially indicated that the woman and at least one of the children were severely injured and possibly trapped inside the vehicle they were travelling in. 
Two air ambulances were summoned to the scene for emergency landings on the highway. A third helicopter was also sought but not available at the time. That patient, one of the two children injured, was rushed by ground ambulance to the Seton Children’s Hospital in Austin.
The two helicopter ambulances, one from PHI and the other a Starflight ambulance from Austin, were also bound for Seton hospitals in Austin, Lavaca County EMS Chief Michael Furrh reported.
The man driving the truck was also injured in the crash, emergency radio reports initially indicated, but his condition was unknown as of this report.
Troopers with the Texas Department of Public Safety were on scene leading the accident investigation, which shut down traffic along Highway 95 for some hours Monday night, as they worked to reconstruct the events as best they could in the dark. 
The investigation no doubt continued once more when daylight returned on Tuesday.
Joining the DPS on scene were emergency responders from the Shiner Fire Department, Moulton Fire Department, Moulton Police Department, Shiner Police Department, Lavaca County Sheriff’s Office, Lavaca County Emergency Management Office, Texas Emergency Management Office, EMS personnel from both Lavaca and Fayette counties, and the two air EMS crews already mentioned.
Closer to Moulton, meanwhile, another crash occurred at about the same time that the one at FM 340 was taking place, only this one occurred some miles north at the intersection of FM 532, where a woman driving a passenger vehicle reportedly rear-ended an 18-wheeler, according to Moulton Police Chief Daniel Beyer.
She, too, was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital for treatment of her injuries, Beyer told the newspaper by phone Monday night, but hers were not what considered life threatening, like what he’d heard the other crash involved.
Chief Furrh, who serves as EMS director for Lavaca and Colorado counties, said that what truly complicated Monday’s accident response, apart from the utter darkness and two accidents happening simultaneously miles apart from one another, was the fact that all available ambulances in Lavaca, Gonzales and Colorado counties combined were all in use transporting other patients when the wrecks occurred.
With the last available Lavaca County rig soon bound for the Austin children’s hospital in response to FM 340 collision, Furrh said he was thankful that Fayette County was able to send crews and equipment our direction when Monday’s emergency calls went out.
In fact, Fayette County EMS transported the woman from the FM 532 crash near Moulton, Furrh said, all while another fully staffed ambulance from Fayette County temporarily stationed in Shiner, just so they could better respond to any other calls that might come in before crews returned from the other calls they’d been on from earlier that day. 
It’s the sort of partnerships that all emergency response agencies—be they law enforcement officers, firefighting personnel or, like those needed Monday, emergency medical crews and ambulances, all have interlocal partnerships in place so that when emergencies happen, everyone has the manpower and equipment needed to get the job done.