PLEASANT GROVE, Utah, Nov. 7, 2022 (Gephardt Daily) — A three-car crash at a freeway off-ramp Monday had first responders scrambling and sent two drivers to the hospital after one apparently ran a red light.
A melee, expected in the midst of a rush hour traffic accident is rough enough, but things were intensified by a caller reporting the 4:20 p.m. crash on Pleasant Grove Boulevard just off I-15 exit 275, mistakenly told dispatchers a 2-year-old child was deceased.
“Which wasn’t the case,” Pleasant Grove Police Sgt. Rick Henderson told Gephardt Daily. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounded.”
No one died and the victims were all adults. Such tense crash scenes in heavy traffic with so many motorist witnesses already complicate matters for first responders.
“And rubberneckers are always a problem.”
Which is why officers closed off traffic in all directions for nearly two hours, asking motorists on social media posts to seek alternate routes. “We wanted to prevent people coming off the interstate from encountering the wreckage,” Henderson said.
The crash came when a northbound driver exiting I-15 ran a red light and was t-boned by another driver, knocking it into a third vehicle, Henderson said.
Impairment and speeds were likely not a factor, Henderson said.
Two of the drivers were transported to area hospitals with non life-threatening injuries. Two of the vehicles involved had to be towed, likely totaled, Henderson said.
Possible charges in the case are pending.
