A single-vehicle traffic accident two miles south of Thor Tuesday morning, May 10, claimed the life of a Humboldt County man, according to the Iowa State Patrol. Derrick Wayne Petersen, 35, Livermore, was pronounced dead at the scene, after his 2009 Dodge R-15 pickup crossed the center line and left County Road C-54 (270th Street), just west of Virginia Avenue. The accident occurred at 8:56 a.m. According to the report, Petersen’s Dodge pickup was traveling westbound on C-54, when the male driver had some type of medical event (seizure) that caused him to lose control of the vehicle. The vehicle left the roadway and struck a farm field fence and clipped two trees before coming to rest upright, facing east in the south ditch. Kacee M. Irle, 18, Eagle Grove, a female passenger in the pickup, was transported to Iowa Specialty Hospital in Clarion by Renwick Ambulance, where she was checked out and released.
