LUBBOCK, TX. (THECOUNT) — A teenage motorcyclist was killed Thursday afternoon after his motorcycle struck a raised median and guardrail on the on-ramp from 19th Street to the Marsha Sharp Freeway in Lubbock, the seat of Lubbock County in the heart of the South Plains region of northwest Texas. Austin Reel, of Lubbock, was transported by ambulance to University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Reel was 19.
The Lubbock Police Department responded to the crash just after 12:30 p.m. in the 4000 block of 19th Street. According to LPD, Reel was traveling west on 19th Street when he entered the on-ramp flyover transitioning to the westbound main lanes of the Marsha Sharp Freeway. While navigating that transition, the motorcycle struck a raised median and then a guardrail. Reel was ejected from the motorcycle. No other vehicles were involved in the crash.
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Emergency crews closed a portion of the Marsha Sharp Freeway for several hours following the crash as investigators worked the scene. The freeway was reopened to normal traffic by 8:00 p.m. Thursday. LPD’s Major Crash Investigation Unit is handling the investigation. No additional information regarding contributing factors has been released at this time.
The Marsha Sharp Freeway — officially designated as Texas State Highway Loop 289 — runs east-west through the heart of Lubbock and serves as one of the city’s primary high-speed commuter corridors. The freeway is named in honor of former Texas Tech women’s basketball coach Marsha Sharp, who led the Lady Raiders to a national championship in 1993. The stretch near 19th Street and the Texas Tech Parkway is among the most heavily traveled sections of the freeway, serving students, faculty, and commuters moving between the university campus, the medical district anchored by UMC and Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, and the broader west Lubbock residential corridor.
The on-ramp flyover where Thursday’s crash occurred is a grade-separated interchange that carries traffic from surface street level up to the elevated freeway mainlanes — a design feature that increases both speed and complexity for drivers and riders transitioning from stop-and-go city traffic to freeway speeds. The raised median struck by Reel’s motorcycle is a standard traffic control feature on the interchange, designed to separate directional traffic flows at the merge point.
Lubbock is the county seat of Lubbock County and the largest city on the Texas South Plains, with a population of approximately 265,000 residents. It sits roughly 115 miles south of Amarillo, 320 miles west of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and 115 miles north of Midland along U.S. Highway 84. The city is home to Texas Tech University, with an enrollment of more than 40,000 students, and serves as the regional hub for healthcare, agriculture, commerce, and higher education across a vast stretch of northwest Texas. University Medical Center, where Reel was pronounced dead, is the region’s primary Level I trauma center and the teaching hospital for the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.
Thursday’s fatal crash on the Marsha Sharp Freeway was the second deadly motorcycle incident in Lubbock in less than two months. On February 1, 2026, 19-year-old Sean Canales died after his motorcycle struck a guardrail on the Marsha Sharp Freeway near 29th Drive. That crash also involved a single motorcycle, no other vehicles, and resulted in the death of the rider at UMC. Two individuals were subsequently arrested on evidence tampering charges in connection with that investigation.
No funeral arrangements for Austin Reel have been announced. Anyone with information about Thursday’s crash is encouraged to contact the Lubbock Police Department.
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