MAGNA, Utah — An 18-year-old man is in stable condition after he crashed into a house early Saturday morning.
Unified Police said he was driving a Dodge Durango and tried to pass a truck traveling westbound on 3500 South in Magna when he lost control and rolled into a house.
The man was partially ejected, police said, and fire crews had to cut the vehicle apart to get him out. He was flown to the hospital by helicopter in extremely critical condition.
The process of retrieving the man from the vehicle was complicated due to the structure, police said.
“We had to stabilize not only the vehicle, but also had to do some supplemental shoring to make sure our crew members were safe,” said Battalion Chief Lee Ascarte with Unified Fire Authority.
Once the house was secure, it took 30 minutes to cut him out of the car.
“We had paramedics in there, stabilizing the victim,” Unified Police Lt. Manfred Lassig said. “Without them doing the stabilization, he probably would have been deceased there on scene.”
The impact knocked the house off its foundation, shifting the whole house about one foot.
The home was deemed unlivable, but remarkably, no one else was injured. The homeowners were inside but were not in the room that was hit by the vehicle.
Yennifer Pasaye and her family have lived in the home for six years, but when the Durango crashed through her basement, it was her loved ones, not the things she lived with, that she reached for.
"Thank god that I wasn't in that room at that time," Pasaye said. "The roof was coming in, and we were just like, 'We've got to get out of here.'"
Once outside, Pasaye realized there was too much glass on the ground so she went back into her home to get a pair of shoes.
“I showed the officer where to go into and where the room was,” she said. “All we could hear was grunting, and he [the driver] was bleeding a lot."
Lassig said speed was definitely a factor in the crash, but police are investigating why the 18-year-old was trying to pass the truck, and why he lost control.
