BOUNTIFUL, Utah — Dashcam video captures the scary moments between a semi and a car on the interstate. Luckily, a Utah Highway Patrol trooper was right there and witnessed all of it.
“Honestly, I thought I was going to go up to that passenger car and find the driver dead,” said trooper Kate Vanroosendaal.
Vanroosendaal was heading southbound on I-15 near 1800 South on Friday. She observed a semi-truck driving in the left lane, something it’s not allowed to do.
“The semi-truck attempted to make a lane change and just clipped that back corner of the car,” she said.
The semi essentially performed a pit maneuver on the car, then T-boned it.
“The semi-truck driver said that he didn’t want to press his brakes because he thought that he would hurt the driver more,” said Vanroosendaal. “So he dragged that car for an extremely long time.”
Aside from a few cuts on his hands, the driver was physically OK. The semi-driver was also not injured and cited for left lane restriction and lane change into an occupied lane.
Vanroosendaal is glad she didn’t have to jump in to render aid, but is thankful she was there if it was needed.
“He was really lucky that it wasn’t worse. Somehow his car held up really, really well,” she said.
