SALT LAKE CITY - An icy off ramp near the airport caused multiple accidents overnight including one that involved a Utah Highway Patrolman.
At about 10 p.m. Thursday the trooper pulled off I-80 westbound onto the Wright Brothers Dr. exit intending to pull back on the freeway going the opposite direction.
The trooper said he started to pull onto the ramp when he noticed a car that had crashed into the concrete wall on the side of the ramp.
As he pulled over to help, he noticed several cars struggling to maintain control.
"I just noticed several vehicles behind me spinning out and hitting the wall," Trooper Nick Swallow said. "I was blocking one of the lanes and I was trying to get back there to shut the ramp down. I saw a vehicle coming at me, spinning 360, and threw my car in drive. I took off. I got tapped by the vehicle."
"I was just heading home from school, it was an icy overpass," Bryan McAlister said. "I stopped for the pile up in front of me but the guys couldn't stop in back of me. I got creamed in the back."
Troopers said at least five separate accidents involving eight cars happened around the same time on that ramp.
No one was seriously injured.
