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GARDEN CITY, Rich County — A trucker's inexperience with mountain driving caused the brakes of his semitruck to overheat and malfunction shortly before the fatal Garden City crash that demolished a store, officials said Friday.
Ahmed M. Abdelgader, 31, of Omaha, Nebraska, was driving a semitruck hauling a load of butter eastbound on U.S. Highway 89 the evening of Oct. 10 when he tried to quickly turn onto state Route 30 in Garden City, according to a Utah Department of Public Safety report. The semitruck jumped the curb and began to roll, eventually slamming into a nearby sporting goods store.
Several witnesses helped pull Abdelgader and a passenger out of the vehicle as emergency services arrived, but the trucker died at a hospital later that night, Utah Highway Patrol officials said. The passenger is still at McKay-Dee Hospital in serious condition, according to the DPS report. His name and age weren't released, but officials said the man was from Indiana.
Witnesses told investigators the semitruck had passed them on the highway prior to the crash and that it was driving erratically through Logan Canyon, swerving into oncoming traffic and toward other motorists, as well as driving across multiple lanes, the report said.
Carlin Nye, of Garden City, said that shortly before the crash, he had passed the semitruck when it appeared to pull over to the side of the road. The truck soon passed him, and he said he knew something was wrong when he saw the truck’s brakes glowing and smoking.
“I could tell their brakes were smoking pretty bad,” he said. “When I looked in the rearview mirror, they were gaining on me.”
He lost sight of the truck but followed the path knowing it would probably crash.
Officials later determined that the truck had functioning brakes, but that the driver was "not familiar with driving in a mountainous environment" and drove in a way that caused the brakes to overheat and malfunction as he descended a hill.
Utah Highway Patrol officials performed a safety inspection on the vehicle and its brakes, and determined that the brakes on both the truck and trailer worked, but at the time of the crash, they "appeared to have been hot and were therefore not functioning normally," the report stated.
Pugstones Sporting store, a staple in the Garden City community for nearly two decades, was a "total loss and had to be demolished," officials said. The community has since rallied around the owners to help them rebuild and held a fundraising dinner and auction to cover costs.
