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NEPHI — Neighbors in a Nephi community are feeling a little vulnerable after a semitruck nearly took out a couple of homes when it lost control on the freeway and rumbled down a steep embankment Wednesday.
Around 6 a.m., a northbound semitruck lost control on I-15, hit a bridge structure, and crossed the median and southbound lanes of traffic before plunging into the neighborhood.
Cullen Dinkel and his family were shaken awake by the loud noise and startled by how close the truck came to their home at 834 E. 850 North.
"(We) heard this just huge noise,” Dinkel said. “(It) sounded like a sonic boom."
Dinkel and his wife jumped out of bed.
"My first thought was something has come off the freeway,” he said.
Dinkel's second thought, he said, was his sleeping children.
“My kids sleep on the other side of the house, and so I ran to the other side of the house, looked out the window and saw a semitractor-trailer sitting in my yard,” he said.
The truck had stopped in the mud about 50 feet from where his kids were sleeping.
Dinkel said he ran outside to check on the driver, who was not injured in the crash.
“That the driver was able to keep it up is pretty remarkable,” said Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Scott Robertson.
According to the UHP, the semitruck driver said he swerved to miss a small animal in the road. They are still investigating and considering a citation.
Meanwhile, Dinkel comforted his 4-year-old daughter, who was pretty shaken up by the ordeal.
“(I’m telling her) why it’s OK to go back into her room and sleep there because this isn’t going to happen (again)," he said, "but at the same time, there’s no guarantee."
The truck cut deep ruts in the yard when it was towed away.
Nearly two years ago, a southbound semitruck nearly took out a home a half-block to the north at 895 E. 700 North, Dinkel said. That truck knocked over a shed before crashing into a power pole just feet from a home.
"Why are we left unprotected?" he asked.
There's a cable barrier on I-15 to the south but none above Dinkel's home. He wants the protection he sees in other Utah neighborhoods along the freeway.
"Cement barriers, there is noise barrier, there are several different things that I've seen in close proximity to where I am,” Dinkel said.
The Utah Department of Transportation said safety engineers analyzed the area after the first crash and will look again to see if a safety barrier would make a difference. But UDOT says there is no pattern to the crashes that would lead to a specific safety solution so there may be no enhancements.
That worries Dinkel.
"I don't want it to be something where it's my kids dying that prompts them to suddenly care,” he said.
Dinkel has lived most of his life in the Nephi community.
"My wife came out and her first thought was, ‘I'm not living here anymore. I'm moving,'" he said.
But Dinkel doesn't want to leave the problem to somebody else.
"I love this town,” he said. “I love this area. I want to stay."
Contributing: Viviane Vo-Duc
