What happened
Moriah Rosa, 32, of LeClaire was killed and three children riding with her were critically injured Tuesday evening, September 22, when a southbound semi and two northbound cars collided on South Cody Road at West Canal Shore Drive in LeClaire, in Scott County. Autumn Hajny, 18, of LeClaire, who was driving the other car, was seriously injured and flown to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
The Scott County Emergency Communication Center took the 911 call at about 6:26 p.m. According to the Scott County Sheriff's Office, a white 2025 Volvo semi-tractor trailer was traveling south on South Cody Road toward Riverdale. Two cars were headed north: a white 1993 Honda Civic and a black 2016 Ford Escape. The semi and the Honda collided, and the Honda briefly went under the semi's trailer. The Ford then collided with the semi and came to rest against the east guardrail. (Scott County Sheriff's Office release; WHBF)
Ms. Rosa was driving the Ford and was pronounced dead at the scene. Three children between the ages of 2 and 9 were passengers in her car; they were taken by Medic Ambulance and then transferred to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, and as of the sheriff's latest update all three remained hospitalized in critical condition. Ms. Hajny, the only person in the Honda, was taken by AirCare helicopter to the same hospital with serious injuries. The semi's driver, Martial Wilkerson, 44, of Davenport, Florida, was reported uninjured and declined medical treatment at the scene. (KWQC; KWQC; WQAD)
South Cody Road is the four-lane stretch of U.S. 67 — the city calls it "Highway 67/Cody Road" — that runs south out of LeClaire toward Riverdale. Deputies said Tuesday night that they did not know what caused the crash. The case is under investigation by the Scott County Sheriff's Office Accident Investigation Team together with the Iowa State Patrol's Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement Division. No citations or charges have been announced.
Two things about the reported facts deserve to be said plainly. The first is about Ms. Rosa. On the sequence the sheriff's office has released, the semi and the Honda collided first, and her Ford came into a crash that was already under way. On those facts she and the children riding with her were victims of this crash, not a cause of it.
The second is about everyone else. As between the semi and the Honda, fault is unknown at this time — the deputies investigating the crash have said they do not know what caused it. Nobody has said which vehicle left its lane, or why; only that a southbound truck and a northbound car met, and that the car ended up under the trailer. It would be easy to read a conclusion into that, in either direction. I will not. That question will be answered, if it is answered at all, by accident reconstruction — scene measurements, crush damage and rest positions, the truck's electronic data, and witness accounts — and only if that evidence is preserved before it is lost.
Our condolences
Moriah Rosa was driving on a Tuesday evening with three children in her car, and she did not survive the drive. Tonight those three children are in critical condition in a hospital in Iowa City, and the people who love them are keeping a vigil that no family should have to keep while also absorbing the loss of the woman who was driving them. Autumn Hajny is in the same hospital, with a family of her own beside her bed.
We are praying for the Rosa family, for the three children, and for the Hajny family. I have spent time in the Quad Cities — in LeClaire, Davenport, Bettendorf and across the river in Moline — and LeClaire is a small enough river town that almost everyone there will know someone touched by this. We hope with everything we have that the children come home. And we are grateful to the deputies, medics and AirCare crew who worked that scene.
Safety context
Crashes between a semi and a passenger car are overwhelmingly survived by the people in the truck and not by the people in the car. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Traffic Safety Facts: Large Trucks, 2023 Data counted 5,472 people killed in crashes involving large trucks in 2023 — an 8 percent decrease from 5,969 the year before, but still roughly fifteen people every day. Seventy percent of the people killed in those crashes were occupants of other vehicles. The physics do not care who was at fault; a loaded tractor-trailer and a passenger car do not meet on equal terms.
A four-lane highway that carries both local traffic and heavy trucks asks a lot of everyone on it. A few habits help:
- Give trucks room, and give them time. A loaded semi needs far more distance to stop or correct than a car, and a trailer does not follow exactly in the cab's path on curves and turns.
- Watch the center line, in both directions. On a four-lane road it is easy to relax about oncoming traffic. Iowa law (Iowa Code § 321.297(3)) forbids driving to the left of the center line on any two-way roadway with four or more lanes except where traffic signs allow it — and the whole margin for error is the width of that line.
- Buckle every child in the right seat for their size, every trip. It is the single thing a driver controls that most changes what happens to a child when something goes wrong that the driver does not control.
The rights of families after a crash like this
A crash like this one leaves several families with legal rights at once, and they are not all the same rights. In general terms, when a commercial truck is involved in a fatal crash, the people harmed may have claims against the truck driver, against the motor carrier the driver was hauling for — which is ordinarily responsible for a driver working on its behalf and has its own duties to hire, train, supervise and maintain safely — and, depending on the facts, against the owner of the trailer, a shipper or broker, or a maintenance company. When two passenger cars are also involved, each driver's conduct is examined too. Which of those claims actually exist depends on what the investigation shows happened in the seconds before the semi and the Honda met, and law enforcement has said it does not yet know.
What can be said, conditionally, is this. The Rosa family and the three children stand in the strongest position of anyone in this crash: on the reported sequence, the Ford came into the collision after the semi and the Honda had already met, so their claims turn not on whether someone else was at fault but on who. If the investigation finds that the semi or its trailer crossed into the northbound lanes, the Rosa family, the children and Ms. Hajny may all have claims against Mr. Wilkerson and the motor carrier he was driving for. If it finds that the Honda crossed into the southbound lanes, the analysis changes — Ms. Hajny's insurance would come into it, the Ford occupants' claims could run against her rather than, or in addition to, the truck, and Mr. Wilkerson could have a claim of his own. If both contributed, Iowa's comparative fault law, Iowa Code § 668.3, divides responsibility by percentage; a person's own recovery is reduced by their share of fault and barred only if that share is greater than the combined fault of everyone they are claiming against. Where more than one party may be responsible, the family of a victim who was not at fault should not have to choose between them — every responsible party, and every insurance policy, should be identified.
The truck driver may have a claim, too. Mr. Wilkerson was reported uninjured and declined treatment at the scene. In my experience that is often not the end of it: in the adrenaline of the moment, people do not realize they are hurt, and injuries that seem minor at a crash scene can turn out to be life-altering in the days that follow. A driver hurt while hauling for a motor carrier will typically have a workers' compensation claim through his employer regardless of who caused the crash, and — if the investigation places the fault elsewhere — a separate claim against the responsible party. Whether compensation applies can depend on how he was engaged, since an owner-operator leased to a carrier is not always treated as an employee.
A few points are specific to this crash and worth a family's attention now:
The truck's records are the evidence, and some of them exist only because a life was lost. The Iowa State Patrol's Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement Division is part of the investigation, which typically means the truck and its paperwork are being examined against federal safety rules. Because this crash involved a death, federal regulations — 49 CFR § 382.303 — required the motor carrier to test its surviving driver for alcohol and controlled substances as soon as practicable afterward. A modern truck also carries electronic logging data, often an engine control module recording speed and braking, and frequently forward- and driver-facing cameras. Much of that is kept only for limited periods unless someone formally demands that it be preserved. The carrier has not been identified in any public reporting; learning who it is, and who insured it, is one of the first things that has to happen.
The children have claims of their own. Each of the three children has a personal injury claim for their own injuries, separate from any claim arising from Ms. Rosa's death. Under Iowa Code § 613.15A, a child's parents may also recover the expenses of the child's injuries and the loss of the child's services, companionship and society. Iowa extends most filing deadlines for minors until one year after they reach adulthood under Iowa Code § 614.8 — but families should not take that as a reason to wait. The evidence does not wait, and the medical bills from a child's critical-care stay begin arriving long before any deadline does.
Ms. Rosa's death gives rise to a wrongful death claim. In Iowa, that claim is brought through her estate. Under Iowa Code § 633.336, damages for the loss of a deceased parent's services and support are apportioned by the court among her surviving spouse, children and parents, and when she leaves a spouse, child or parent, those damages are protected from the ordinary debts of her estate. Iowa's general deadline for actions founded on injuries to the person is two years under Iowa Code § 614.1(2).
Families in this position should also expect to be contacted — sometimes within days — by the trucking company's insurer. It is almost never in a grieving family's interest to give a recorded statement or sign anything before they understand what the investigation found and what their claims are worth, especially when children's injuries are still unfolding and no one can yet say what their recovery will require.
Learn more about your rights: families facing a crash like this may want to read about how semi-truck crash claims work and who can be held responsible, about what a wrongful death claim covers when a parent is killed, and about the claims of drivers and passengers hurt in a multi-vehicle crash.
How I help families in crisis
When a crash like this happens, a family is split between a funeral home and a hospital where children are in critical condition, and it is in exactly that week that a trucking company's insurer begins building its version of events. Families should not have to fight on both fronts at once. My job is to take the legal side of it off their shoulders entirely, so they can be where they need to be.
That means sending preservation demands to the carrier right away — for the truck's electronic logs, its engine data, its camera footage, the post-crash test results and the driver's qualification file — before any of it is overwritten or lost. It means identifying every insurance policy that might answer for what happened, including coverage that families often don't know they have. It means following the sheriff's reconstruction and the Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement findings as they come in, and bringing in independent reconstruction where the facts call for it. And it means taking up the shield for the family with every adjuster and every company representative, so that no one in mourning, and no parent sitting beside a hospital bed, is pressured into a statement or a signature.
Over my career I have recovered more than $23 million for injured people and grieving families, earned countless five-star reviews from clients and endorsements from fellow attorneys, and been honored as part of a Best of Omaha personal injury team in 2025 and 2026.
If this is your family, there is no rush and no pressure — whenever you are ready, call and we will talk it through at no cost. If we work together, I am paid only if I recover for you.
Frequently asked questions
- What happened in the semi crash on South Cody Road in LeClaire, Iowa?
- Moriah Rosa, 32, of LeClaire was killed and three children riding with her were critically injured on the evening of Tuesday, September 22, 2026, when a southbound semi and two northbound cars collided on South Cody Road at West Canal Shore Drive in LeClaire. The driver of the other car, 18, was seriously injured.
- What are the rights of families after a crash like this?
- On the reported sequence, Ms. Rosa's car came into a crash already under way, so her family and the children stand in a strong position; fault between the semi and the other car is unknown. Depending on the investigation, claims may run against the truck driver, the motor carrier or another driver. The children also have injury claims of their own.
- How does Frank Younes help families after something like this?
- Frank takes the legal weight off the family: sending preservation demands for the truck's logs, engine data, camera footage and post-crash test results, finding every applicable insurance policy, following the investigation, and handling every insurer so no one is pressured into a statement. The first conversation is free.
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