A report of a reckless driver on Interstate 80 Saturday night eventually turned into a crash that involved four cars, caused the freeway to close and sent four to hospitals.
Trooper Roger Daniels of the Utah Highway Patrol said he was trying to catch up to and pull over an eastbound 1998 GMC Sonoma that drivers had reported driving recklessly at about 8:50 p.m. A few minutes later, he got word that the vehicle had been involved in a crash with a minivan near the Tooele-Salt Lake county line.
Daniels said witnesses reported that the driver of the Sonoma cut off a pickup truck and clipped the cement barrier in the median, then bounced off of that into a minivan. The impact caused the minivan to swerve to the left and the driver of the minivan overcorrected to the right, he said, rolling the vehicle.
A 12-year-old boy in the van was ejected, Daniels said, and his grandmother and grandfather, both in their 70s, were also injured. Daniels said witnesses and passersby had stopped to help the injured trio when he arrived, about a minute after the crash occurred. The man had gotten out of the van, but the woman was trapped inside, he said.
“I was at the vehicle speaking with her and I don’t recall who it was but a witness said the individual who had caused the crash was running away,” Daniels said. “I looked up and he was running away from his vehicle towards the 201 offramp. I ran to my vehicle, told the witnesses I’d be right back, and drove after him.”
Daniels caught up to the man, identified as Saul Sanchez Cruz, 28, of Salt Lake City, who had slowed to a walk. Cruz, whom Daniels described as being “very intoxicated,” was arrested and booked into the Tooele County Detention Center.
Meanwhile, the stopped witnesses and emergency vehicles near the crash site slowed down traffic, said UHP Trooper Craig Ward, which caused more problems.
“The traffic was starting to back up. A pickup truck slowed down and the car behind him didn’t see him and crashed into him,” he said.
The woman driving the car was injured and taken by ambulance to a Salt Lake hospital. Ward said that case would be screened for potential charges.
Daniels said the elderly man had the worst injuries of the three in the minivan and was flown to a Salt Lake hospital, while the woman and the boy were both taken to separate Salt Lake hospitals by ambulance.
Cruz was charged Monday with two counts of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, a third-degree felony; failure to remain at the scene of an accident involving serious injury, a third-degree felony; and reckless endangerment, a class A misdemeanor. No court date had been set as of press time Tuesday.