20-year-old sentenced after fatal accident in Ashby

Colton Lindquist (OTCDF)

Ashby, MN – 20-year-old Colton Duane Lindquist has been sentenced to home confinement for his reckless driving that caused a fatal crash in rural Ashby late last year.

According to court documents, the Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a collision between a pickup truck and a passenger vehicle at an intersection northwest of Ashby on November 3, 2023 at approximately 2:10 p.m.

When the emergency services arrived, they discovered both vehicles in the ditch.

Lindquist was identified as the driver of the pickup truck.

The driver of the car told police that she was driving west on 100th Street when the truck came out of nowhere through the intersection.

She stated that she made an emergency stop but was unable to stop in time and crashed into the passenger side of the pickup truck.

Another officer spoke to Lindquist, who stated he was driving north on 295th Avenue toward the intersection of 100th Street.

When he got to the intersection, he didn’t remember seeing anything. The next thing he remembered was that after the impact with the other vehicle, he was lying in the ditch and was unconscious for a while.

When asked by police if he had stopped at the stop sign at the intersection, Lindquist stated that he believed he had, but could not remember.

The driver of the car suffered non-life-threatening injuries, but her passenger was flown to hospital by rescue helicopter and was pronounced dead due to the injuries sustained in the accident.

Investigators found that the acceleration data obtained from Lindquist’s pickup truck did not match the normal acceleration values ​​that would be expected if the truck had come to a complete stop at a stop sign.

Officers concluded that the cause of the accident was that he had failed to yield to oncoming traffic.

On Monday (July 22), Lindquist pleaded guilty to careless driving and will spend two days in the Otter Tail County Detention Center, 28 days under house arrest and one year on probation.