Pig causes deadly road smashup

UVALDE, Texas, United States — A U.S. Border Patrol agent and two other people have died after a sport utility vehicle collided with a wild pig in Southwest Texas, authorities said.

The accident happened late Monday on a rural road near Uvalde, about 110 miles (177 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio. Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Conrad Hein said Tuesday that a preliminary investigation indicates a Ford Expedition collided with a hog, which caused the vehicle to swerve into oncoming traffic and hit a Mercedes SUV head-on.

The Expedition’s driver, 51-year-old Ruby Garza, and the driver of the Mercedes, 27-year-old Antonio Cordova, were pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger in the Expedition, 51-year-old Julia Vasquez, died later at a hospital.

Border Patrol officials in Del Rio, Texas, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Cordova was a Border Patrol agent and was driving home after finishing a shift at the station in Uvalde.

Two other people who also were passengers in the Expedition were injured but Hein said he had no details about them or their conditions.

It was not immediately clear what happened to the hog. Both vehicles were fully engulfed in flames, Hein said.

Texas has a growing hog population that causes millions of dollars’ worth of damage to crops each year. Around the country, feral hogs do more than $1.5 billion a year in damage. They damage crops and hay fields and can spread dozens of diseases.

Scientists are field testing poison baits made from a preservative that’s used to cure bacon and sausage as a way to control the hogs. Tests will start early in 2018 in West Texas and continue in central Alabama around midsummer. /cbb