SALT LAKE CITY — An Ogden grandmother had a close-call while driving on the interstate with her grandchildren in the backseat. She hopes her story can inspire other drivers to be on the lookout for dangerous debris.
“I never really thought about it how they say, ‘Here today, gone tomorrow,’” said Melody Medina. “That is a true fact.”
Last week, Medina was heading south on I-15 near Ogden with her two grandchildren in the backseat. She said she had just passed the 31st Street exit when she saw something coming her way.
“Then boom,” she recalled.
She doesn’t know if it was a brick or a large rock, or if it came from an overpass or from in front of her. All she knows is she’s thankful it didn’t break through.
“It had to have a lot of speed the way it hit,” she said. “And it was huge.”
She said she was able to stay calm and controlled and safely get off at the next exit.
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“Xavier was like, ‘Grandma, that would have killed you.’ And I just cried,” she said.
According to the Utah Department of Public Safety’s Highway Safety Office, debris-related crashes keep rising each year. The Utah Highway Patrol said the accidents are more common in the warmer months.
“My grandson, he doesn’t want to go on the freeway anymore,” said Medina. “He didn’t like the freeway before, I don’t know why, but this made it even worse.”
Medina is a single grandmother raising both her grandsons. They’re all shaken up but thankful to be safe.
“It was a humbling experience because that went through my head: where would they go? Where would they be?” she said. “They keep me going.”
