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TOOELE COUNTY — Nearly a full day after a horrific crash on I-80 in Tooele County, investigators are still trying to fathom exactly what happened.
“This is one of the most horrible scenes you can deal with,” Lt. Corey Nye of the Utah Highway Patrol said. “When you see these children, and these infants, involved in a death like this, it’s very tragic.”
UHP identified the driver as Jose F Adame-Orozco, 36; the front-seat female passenger as Delphine John, 44; the rear, driver's side passenger as Anaya Orozco, 3 (daughter of Adame-Orozco and John); and the rear passenger's side passenger as Deliah Ramirez, 18 (John's daughter from a previous relationship).
“I saw that there was an accident that had happen,” Robin Craghead, a witness to the incident, said. “There’s just nothing that can ever prepare you for that.”
Investigators believe 36-year-old Paul Michael Mumford of West Jordan was drunk and driving his pickup truck erratically on I-80. Emergency dispatchers received several calls about him at about 6 o’clock Friday evening.
At some point, he turned around in the westbound lane of I-80 and started going eastbound in the westbound lane, officials said. He smashed head on into a blue 2007 Chevy Suburban, killing three of the people inside.
Troopers say each vehicle was going at least 80 miles an hour without any skids marks to show either driver hit the brakes.
The crash was so severe, so unbelievably powerful, even troopers with years and decades of experience couldn't believe what they saw.
You have a family who is gone, and you have a person who made a very poor choice to consume alcohol, get behind the wheel, and as a result, an entire family is gone.
–Capt. Doug McCleve, Utah Highway Patrol
“That’s like hitting a brick wall at 160 miles per hour. Just a tremendous amount of force and impact,” Capt. Doug McCleve of the Utah Highway Patrol said.
Investigators say it doesn't appear the two children were wearing seat belts. It’s unknown if seat belts would have made a difference, but wearing them minimizes the risk of injury.
"The bottom line is, none of that matters. You have a family who is gone, and you have a person who made a very poor choice to consume alcohol, get behind the wheel, and as a result, an entire family is gone,” McCleve said.
Troopers say Mumford was wearing his seat belt and is now in stable condition at a hospital. He’s expected to be released from the hospital in the next couple of days.
Troopers were initially unable to identify the victims and were unsure if the four victims are related or where they were from. The vehicle registration and an identification card found at the crash scene did not help investigators track down who they are. Troopers asked for the public's help in identifying the victims.
“It’s possible the vehicle they were in isn’t their vehicle, and when we went to the house listed on the registration, it wasn’t their home,” said Nye.
Utah Highway Patrol tweeted at around 5:45 p.m. that they were able to identify the victims of the crash.
