SALT LAKE CITY — Dash camera video from Utah Highway Patrol captured the moment when a trooper intercepted a wrong way vehicle early Wednesday morning.
Officials with UHP said just before 1 a.m., troopers were dispatched on reports that a vehicle was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes of Interstate 215 West.
The driver was reportedly between 3500 South and SR-201 and Trooper R. Jensen located the vehicle near the Legacy Highway split on I-215 West.
Trooper Jensen got ahead of the vehicle, UHP explained, and intercepted it near Center Street in North Salt Lake.
Video showed the trooper using his vehicle to crash into the wrong way vehicle.
UHP says the driver of the wrong way vehicle was an elderly male in his 70's who got confused with his location on the road.
The impact of the interception knocked the other car off the road and into a shallow pond.
Both the elderly male and Trooper Jensen had non-life threatening injuries in the subsequent crash but were cleared by medical professionals at the scene.
Governor Spencer Cox took to Twitter Wednesday night to thank Trooper Jensen for his "heroism."
"I had a great call with Trooper Jensen tonight," the tweet reads. "By putting his own life in danger and intentionally causing an accident, he saved the life of this disoriented elderly driver and some unsuspecting vehicle up ahead. True heroism."
