A Utah Highway Patrol trooper was struck Sunday afternoon while investigating a crash.
Sgt. Cade Brenchley was outside his vehicle at "big curve" and the mouth of Sardine Canyon on US 89/91 checking on victims of a previous crash when he was hit by a driving, according to The Cache Valley Daily.
“Sgt. Brenchley pulled up to a car that had slid off the road and another car that was on its side," Lt. Lee Perry told reporters. "As he got out of his patrol car and started to walk up to the first car that had slid off the road, at about 14 minutes after 5 p.m., he got hit by another car that lost control and slid into him."
The impact pushed Brechley into the vechile he was walking up to and he was temporarily knocked unconscious. He broke several ribs and his scapula and was transported to a local hospital for treatment.
Officials said that heavy snowfall at the time of the crash made the roadway slick and that there were six crashes and five slide-offs within a 20-minute period on the road. No one else was injured in the crashes.
Perry said that Brenchley is fortunate that his injuries were not more serious.
"When you are driving and you see one car off the road, you need to get your foot off the gas, and especially if you are coming up on something that is off the road, don't hit your brakes. That is probably what set this up," he said. "The poor gal that hit him, saw it, panicked and hit the brakes, and that caused her to loose even more control, sliding, where she couldn't control where she was going at that point."
