SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Jan. 25, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — Emergency responders were kept busy Thursday afternoon with four semi-truck crashes on Utah’s interstates.
The wrecks came simultaneously but unrelated, according to the Utah Highway Patrol, and only one serious injury resulted. “Yes, we had some crazy circumstances today,” said Sgt. Cameron Roden, UHP public information officer.
The first incident came shortly before 11:30 a.m. when a semi slid into an Iron County School District bus transporting 11 children on I-15 in Cedar City. The weather with heavy snowfall was directly responsible, Roden said. There were no injuries but the incident closed the northbound lanes while the vehicles were cleared, he said, damaged but not needing a tow.
Then around noon in the northbound lanes of I-215 near 1000 N in Salt Lake City, a semi-truck jack-knifed and rolled on its side. No other vehicles were involved, Roden said, although the driver said he’d lost control when another vehicle cut him off.
The truck had a frontward camera and that’s central to the investigation. No injuries resulted and the truck had no cargo so traffic disruption was minimal..
But things became immediately more complicated when a southbound semi driver on I-215 was distracted looking at the northbound wreck, Roden said, and became involved in a collision with two passenger vehicles. The two semi crashes ended up yards apart, separated by the freeway median.
A woman in one of the passenger vehicles in the southbound accident was transported by ambulance to a hospital in critical condition, Roden said, the only serious injury in the mishap which is still under investigation.
Details were scarce on yet another semi crash shortly afterwards on I-215 a mile and a half south at the I-215 I-80 interchange. Roden said he hadn’t seen a report yet Thursday evening but was informed there were no injuries in the fourth and final semi incident of the day.
