photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

A Douglas County Sheriff's Office vehicle is pictured in January 2022.

Two serious injury crashes occurred on Saturday afternoon, one just south of Lawrence and another just north of Lawrence, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said Saturday evening.

The crash south of Lawrence was a two-vehicle collision on U.S. Highway 59 in which five people were injured.

Sheriff’s office spokesman George Diepenbrock said via email that the crash took place around 4:45 p.m. Saturday at the intersection of North 1100 Road and U.S. 59, which is about 1.5 miles south of Lawrence. According to preliminary information, Diepenbrock said, a vehicle was going west on North 1100 Road, failed to stop at a stop sign and was struck by a southbound vehicle on U.S. 59.

Three people in the westbound vehicle were injured, two of them seriously, Diepenbrock said. Two people in the southbound vehicle were also seriously injured. All five injured people were taken to area hospitals.

Diepenbrock said deputies shut down the southbound lanes of the highway so medics could get the patients out and so that the crash scene could be investigated. The highway’s lanes reopened before 7 p.m., he said.

The second injury crash was a motorcycle crash just northeast of Lawrence, on U.S. Highway 24-40 near Kansas Highway 32, around 4:50 p.m.

Diepenbrock said preliminary information indicated that a 40-year-old motorcyclist was heading toward Lawrence and attempted to pass a vehicle on the right. He lost control of his motorcycle and skidded across the highway.

Medics took him to a Kansas City-area hospital with serious injuries, Diepenbrock said.