SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 10, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — A woman is in critical condition early Wednesday morning after crashing into a traffic island and requiring extrication from her vehicle, which had caught fire.
Lt. Dave Cracroft, Salt Lake City Police Department, said it was shortly after midnight when an SLCPD officer who was patrolling the area saw the speeding car slam into the island on 600 West and go flying into the air.
Cracroft said at the scene that police are assuming the driver didn’t see the island in the middle of the roundabout. After the vehicle went airborne, it rolled several times — traveling as far as 50 feet — before landing on the northeast corner of the intersection at 200 North and 600 West.
The vehicle began to burst into flames, but the officer who saw the crash was able to put it out with his fire extinguisher.
That wasn’t the only problem, however.
The driver was trapped inside the car, and Salt Lake City Fire Department crews had to cut the roof off to get her out.
She was transported to Intermountain Medical Center in critical condition.
Cracroft said the woman had fled from Utah Transit Authority earlier, but police had very little information about what led up to her fleeing.
“They (UTA) didn’t pursue, but she was definitely going at a high rate of speed,” he said.
The Crash Analysis Reconstruction Team was en route to assist in the investigation, and Cracroft said it would be several hours before the scene would be cleared.
Gephardt Daily will update this story as more information becomes available.
