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(File photo courtesy the History Channel)
SALT LAKE CITY -- A Salt Lake City man is injured in a car wreck on some of the iciest roads in America.
Forty-year-old Scott Simper is on the crew of the History Channel's "Ice Road Truckers."
He and three others were driving 22 miles south of the oil fields near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, when a blizzard hit Thursday.
"The road that they travel on is a gravel road that's ice covered at this point in time in the year," said North Slope Borough Police Lt. Jeff Brown. He says the storm was so bad, actual travel was not advised.
"Locally, the wind was blowing at approximately 70 mph and visibility was near zero to zero," he said.
An oil tanker was on the road ahead of Simper's truck. It was driving extremely slow due to the weather.
Brown said, "The pickup truck didn't see the tanker in front of them and hit the back it."
It took crews almost four hours to travel nine miles out to the scene of the accident. They weren't able to really see the extent of the damage until after the storm passed.
Two men, 58-year-old Rick Jumper of Arlington, Wash., and 24-year-old Ben Swinehart of North Hollywood, Calif., were seriously injured and transported to Anchorage for medical treatment.
Simper and 29-year-old Hugh Peterson of West Hollywood were only slightly injured and treated on the scene. The driver of the semi was not injured.
E-mail: pmchardy@ksl.com
