- Royal City, WA
Two Othello men passed away Thursday afternoon as the result of a two-vehicle collision one mile north of the town of Royal City.
45-year-old Perfecto Rojas Mejia, was driving a 2004 Nissan Murano southbound on Road E-Southwest. According to the Grant County Sheriffs Office when Rojas Mejia stopped at the stop sign at Road 11-Southwest. Mejia then pulled into the path of a 2006 Freightliner flatbed driven by 57-year-old James Howard Smith of Cle Elum he was driving westbound. The collision caused the Nissan to leave the roadway and roll onto its driver’s side in an irrigation canal.
Mejia died at the scene. The passenger in the Nissan, 58-year-old Romeo Velasquez Diaz, was flown by air ambulance to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland where he was pronounced dead. Smith was not injured.
The collision is under investigation by the Grant County Sheriff’s Motor Traffic Unit.
Royal Slope Fire, Royal City Police Department-, sheriff’s deputies and American Medical Response Grant County answered the call dispatched by MACC 911 at 2:25 p.m.