A 50-year-old Springbrook man was killed Thursday morning in a crash involving a logging truck and an SUV in Sawyer County.
The Sawyer County Sheriff's Office said the collision happened shortly before 7 a.m. on Highway 63 at the entrance to Select Excavating in the Town of Hayward.
According to the preliminary investigation, a semi pulling a loaded log trailer was entering the northbound lane of the highway when a southbound Honda CR-V struck the trailer's triple axles.
The SUV driver, identified as Jason Laehn of Springbrook, suffered fatal injuries. He was the only person in the vehicle.
The semi driver, 65-year-old William Anderson of Glidden, was not injured. The crash remains under investigation by the Sheriff's Office, the Wisconsin State Patrol and the Sawyer County Medical Examiner.
Laehn had just dropped his wife, Lauren, off at work that morning and was on his way home when the crash happened. He leaves behind Lauren and their daughter, Makayla. Springbrook is a small, close-knit community, and his death has hit friends and neighbors across the Hayward area hard.
A GoFundMe started by Kipp Nelson of Hayward to help Lauren and Makayla with funeral costs and arrangements — and to replace the family's only vehicle, which was lost in the crash — had raised $6,890 toward a $12,000 goal as of Saturday morning: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-lauren-and-makayla-after-jasons-loss
