Two people escaped injury Saturday after a pickup was destroyed by fire following a collision with a suspected llama. The driver of the vehicle was arrested for suspicion of DUI.
The accident was reported at 5:49 p.m. on Saturday. A 2006 Chevrolet Silverado four-door pickup, driven by Douglas Kilgariff, 58 of Pratt, was eastbound on NE 100th Street west of NE 50th Ave. when it struck a suspected llama. The vehicle went off the south side of the road, the driver overcorrected, went across the road and entered a CRP field at a driveway entrance, said Pratt County Undersheriff Rick Shriver.
The pickup came to a stop in tall CRP grass and something underneath the pickup or something from the accident caught the grass and pickup on fire. It is unknown if the pickup was stuck, had some mechanical problem or just caught fire causing the occupants to leave, Shriver said.
Kilgariff and passenger Elizabeth Terwey, 49 of Hutchinson, were located at a nearby residence and neither was injured in the accident. Kilgariff was arrested for suspicion of DUI.
A llama had been reported in the area in the last couple of weeks and the tracks at the point of impact did not look like cattle tracks according to the accident report, Shriver said.
No llama has been found but the evidence at the crash site indicates the animal was injured.
Pratt, Kan. —
