2 killed, 1 injured in crash in unincorporated McHenry County

Two men were killed and a third was injured in a single-vehicle crash late Saturday in unincorporated McHenry County.

At 11:48 p.m., a 2001 Ford Explorer was traveling south in the 1400 block of South Lilly Lake Road when it ran off the road and struck a tree in unincorporated Nunda Township, according to the McHenry County sheriff’s office.

The driver, 31-year-old Allan Javier Sanchez Gamez, was trapped in the SUV, police and the McHenry County coroner’s office said. A passenger in the back seat, 33-year-old Timoteo Guzman Mejia, was thrown from the vehicle.

The men, who both lived in Crystal Lake, were pronounced dead at the scene at 12:05 a.m. Sunday, the coroner’s office said. Gamez died from blunt trauma to the head and chest, while Mejia died from blunt trauma to the head, chest and abdomen. Toxicology testing for both men was pending Monday evening.

The front seat passenger, a 23-year-old Crystal Lake man, was taken to Centegra Northern Illinois Medical Center in McHenry with injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening, police said.

Gamez and the front seat passenger were wearing their seat belts, but Mejia was not, authorities said. The SUV’s airbags were deployed during the crash.

The cause of the crash was under investigation by the McHenry County Sheriff’s Traffic Crash Investigations Unit.