Photo: A semi-truck carrying uranium ore from the Pinyon Plain Mine is parked near Shonto on the Navajo Nation after a collision on May 6, 2026. (Courtesy Navajo Police Department)

The Navajo Police Department responded Wednesday to a crash involving a semi-truck carrying uranium ore from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim to a mill in Utah.

KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more on the first reported incident since hauling began nearly two years ago.

The accident occurred about a half mile east of Highway 160 and state Route 98 near Shonto in Navajo County.

Officials say an SUV tried passing another vehicle, striking the passenger-side tire and bumper of the uranium truck bound for Blanding, Utah.

The tribe’s Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Pinyon Plain Mine, which is owned by Energy Fuels, were notified.

Using a gamma radiation detector, they inspected the crash site, concluding no radioactive material leaked.

The collision sent two people in the SUV to a local hospital with injuries, while the truck driver was unharmed.

Tracy Day’s daughter Kaelyn Schneider hugs MMIP advocate Jamiann S’eiltin Hasselquist at the Kaasei Healing Kootéeyaa on May 5, 2025. (Photo: Yvonne Krumrey / KTOO)

Juneau, Alaska woman Tracy Day has been missing for more than seven years. And while her disappearance has become a rallying cry for MMIP in Juneau, her daughter also wants people to know who she was before she went missing.

KTOO’s Yvonne Krumrey has more.

Kaelyn Schnieder says her mom was always finding new adventures for the family to go on.

The house she grew up in in Sitka, Alaska was spotless and Day was taking night classes to be a nurse.

Her struggles with mental health came later.

“But I feel like, when she went missing, everybody was like, ‘Oh, she’s living in St Vincent. And like, she’s a mentally ill addict.’ It was just not the way I wanted people to see her, because my mom was a wonderful parent, and she wasn’t always sick.”

Schneider says when she was a young child, she was the victim of child sex abuse by her friend’s father.

After Day found out what had happened, she blamed herself for trusting the family.

Schneider believes it triggered Day’s mental health issues.

“It changed her brain chemistry, you know. So that’s, like, the best way I could explain it.”

Schneider thinks that changed the trajectory of her mother’s life.

Tracy Day has been missing since February 14, 2019. (Courtesy Juneau Police Department)

Day struggled with mental illness and substance abuse, but Schneider wants people to know her mom the way she remembers her, as a dignified, even glamorous woman.

“She was kind of like a diva. Like back in the day, she always had her hair done, lipstick done, nails, everything. She was always dressed so beautifully.”

She was also a devoted parent and she was fun.

“When she wasn’t at work, we were never bored. We would go ride our bike and we would get curly fries with cheese and milkshakes, and then we would go to the duck pond and feed the ducks. And, like, she was a good, like, playful parent.”

Schneider says that even through Dayʼs later mental health crises, she always stuck around and checked in with her family.

“She would not take off. She’s the opposite. She’s like, the parent that annoys you, because they’re showing up so much.”

Schneider’s son was born after Day went missing. He is five years old now and she is finding herself having to explain the absence.

“My son, he’s at that age where he’s starting to question, like, ‘what happened to grandma?’ And like, ‘Why is she not in your life?’ And you know, like, he always asks — it’s so horrible — He always asks, like, ‘Are you gonna disappear?’ And like, as a mom, that is just horrible. You know that knowing that my son, like, has that thought in his head, because he knows it’s a possibility.”

So Schneider says, for him and for her newborn son, she will keep looking for the truth of what happened to her mom.

“I really want to keep searching and talking about her case, not only for me, but also for my sons. I want them to know that people are still interested and care.”

Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.

Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts.

Check out today’s Native America Calling episode

Friday, May 8, 2026 – What Native graduates are looking forward to