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GRANTSVILLE — Newly released body camera and dash-camera footage gave a closer look Wednesday at a violent crash on Interstate 80 earlier this month.
On March 2, investigators said a semitruck approached a Utah Highway Patrol SUV and a semitruck that were pulled over to the right side of the road near Grantsville. When the oncoming semitruck attempted to move over to the left lane to give space to the trooper, investigators said, the semitruck struck a vehicle in its blind spot and then corrected back into the trooper's vehicle and the semitruck on the side of the interstate.
"I heard the sound of screeching tires," said UHP trooper Sterling Saiz. "I grabbed the railing on the inside of the tractor and kind of braced myself on the dashboard and the entire tractor just started shaking."
The aftermath was awful and stunning.
"All of a sudden I just see this flaming wreckage go past the driver's side window," Saiz said. "There are just flames and debris, just a lot of chaos going on right there."
Body camera footage captured a smoke plume rising from the other semi-truck and the semitruck's haul of eggs strewn across the lanes of the interstate.
Saiz could be seen in the video grabbing his fire extinguisher out of his wrecked SUV and checking on the occupants of the car the semitruck hit. Initial reports said they were transported to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
"That was the most adrenalin-filled moments of the entire incident," Saiz acknowledged.
Though the crash began when investigators said the semitruck moved over to avoid the other vehicles along the side of the road, Saiz maintained the importance of obeying the move-over law when safe and practical.
He said, however, had he been shielded by a smaller vehicle than a semitruck when the impact happened, the consequences for everyone could have been far more grave.
"The fact is all of us probably would have been severely injured if not killed," Saiz said. "This situation could have been so much worse."
