A WSU professor died Wednesday after a car crash about four miles south of Cambridge, Idaho, in which he crossed the centerline of U.S. Route 95 in his Prius and side-swept a one-ton Dodge truck and the attached horse trailer.

Kota Inoue, assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures, later died from his injuries at St. Luke’s Hospital in Meridian, Idaho, said Justin Turrentine, Idaho State Police trooper.

All occupants of the two vehicles involved in the accident were wearing safety belts, Turrentine said. However, one of the portable livestock panels mounted to the side of the trailer came off during the side sweep and went through Inoue’s windshield, severely injuring him.

Turrentine arrived at the scene soon after Inoue had been taken away in an ambulance.

“It was snowing pretty heavy,” Turrentine said. “The Prius was sitting sideways in the north and southbound lanes of traffic, straddling the centerline. The truck was pulled off to the side of the road and livestock panels were just strewn with other debris across the road between the two cars.”

The Idaho State Police had to completely shut down the highway for four hours, Turrentine said. By the time the police had finished their investigation of the accident site, three or four inches of new snow had fallen, he said.

Turrentine said this was not like other bad crashes, and the other driver, 19-year-old Cole Brown, walked away without a single injury. Turrentine said it is still unknown why Inoue crossed the central line.

“If the livestock panels had not gone through the windshield of the vehicle, it would’ve probably been a completely different turnout,” he said.

This past semester, Inoue taught Japanese 308, Intermediate Grammar and Writing, and Japanese 322, Ecology in East Asian Cultures.

The chair of Inoue’s department, Joylon Hughes, said it was Inoue’s fifth year teaching at WSU. He was a tenure-track professor, the ranking faculty member in Japanese, and an expert on Japan and its culture.

Hughes said Inoue was well-liked by his students, who always gave great reviews at the end of each semester.

“Just a couple of weeks ago,” he recalled, “I had a couple of students come up and we were talking about how great the Japanese program is and how professor Inoue was such a passionate and engaged teacher.”

Hughes said that in Inoue they’ve lost a third of the Japanese program and a high-ranking faculty member.

“That’s going to be devastating to us,” he said.

Inoue graduated with his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, in 2004, and worked there for a few years before coming to WSU, Hughes said.

The authorities had difficulty getting in touch with Inoue’s family, who live in Japan, Hughes said.

Inoue had been researching the Fukushima nuclear accident that occurred five years ago, Hughes said. Inoue had been looking into the environmental aspect of it, which was going very well, he said.

Hughes said that Inoue was a great colleague to have around in every way.

“He will be very missed,” Hughes said.