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SALT LAKE CITY -- A terrible pileup on Interstate 15 Thursday morning snarled the commute for thousands. One man who witnessed the accident immediately jumped out to help. Now, some are calling him a hero.
John Copsy doesn't think he's a hero, but then again heroes never do. He says he just reacted when he knew help was needed, even if it meant he could get hurt too.
"It was one of those things. You just gotta do it. There's no question about letting him burn to death," Copsy said.
Utah Highway Patrol troopers say around 8 a.m., a northbound truck crossed over in front of a UPS truck, which was pulling two trailers, to get to the I-80 exit. The move set off a chain reaction.
"The UPS truck braked. The semi behind him, which was a Geneva Rock truck, couldn't stop in time and tried to swerve and missed the UPS truck," explained UHP Sgt. Shelton Riches.
The driver of the Geneva truck instead hit one of the UPS trailers then crashed into the concrete wall. The truck's gas tank ruptured, spilling diesel fuel all over the road.
"There was nobody else there to help him. I wasn't going to stand there and watch some guy burn alive when I could help save him, you know?" Copsy said. "I jumped up on the wall and I said, 'Come on! I'll help you!' And he said his legs weren't working."
Copsy had to convince the driver to basically fall on him.
"I was really worried about the thing going up at that time, so I said, 'Look, we're going to have to get out of here now. It might catch on fire, and then we're both goners,'" Copsy said.
After carrying the driver to safety, Copsy then directed traffic so rescue workers could get to the scene. The crashes blocked all six lanes.
"We got them out of the way, cleared all the debris. I got two lanes of traffic moving and basically directed traffic until police showed up," Copsy said.
As it skidded across the freeway, the Geneva truck also barreled into a small white car in the next lane over. That crash sent the white car underneath the UPS truck.
Briann Titcomb also witnessed the crash.
"We thought someone would be dead for sure, but everyone was fine," Titcomb said.
She said she ran up to see if she could help the man in the car and discovered he was getting out his phone to call someone.
The driver of the car had to be cut out by rescue workers, but he did not sustain any injuries.
"[They're] very fortunate to walk away from a serious crash like this," Riches said.
Troopers say it looks as if drivers were following too close in already bumper-to-bumper traffic, and that's what caused the accident.
"You should always be traveling at a reasonable distance. A reasonable distance, as we learn in driver's education, is two seconds," Riches said.
As for Copsy, he's just hoping Friday's commute from his Murray home goes back to normal.
"I don't think I'm going to take the highway again. I think I'll drive across town and take that extra 15 minutes," he said.
Now police are trying to track down the drivers of a third semi and at least one other car they say were involved in the accident but kept driving.
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Story compiled with contributions from Alex Cabrero, Randall Jeppesen and Anne Forester.
