The last thing the driver of a Pleasant Grove utility truck remembers before the air bag slammed into his face is looking over at his girlfriend and kissing her hand, according to recently unsealed court documents.
Moments after the driver looked away from the road, the utility truck, traveling about 50 mph, hit a red Ford Escape waiting with several other vehicles at a red light at the Provo intersection of 3700 North and University Avenue. The impact caused a chain reaction, pushing it into the car ahead of it, and that vehicle into the one in front of it.
The search warrants, released Sunday, show that a moment of inattention likely triggered the April 15 crash, which left the red SUV crushed like an aluminum can between the man’s utility truck and the white sedan stopped ahead of it. Three-year-old Chelsea Parkinson, who was in the SUV, died in the crash.
A 1-year-old girl riding in the backseat of the SUV with the toddler was thrown forward in her car seat, causing skull fractures and brain bleeding. The baby’s car seat collided with her father’s driver-side seat and broke his back and ribs. The child’s mother, sitting in the front passenger seat, fractured her skull and went into a coma after the crash.
Six other people were injured in the crash, but none of their injuries was considered life-threatening, police have said. Detective Paul Shade, a Provo police spokesman, said the people injured in the SUV are expected to recover.
The 38-year-old utility truck driver was on call for his city job when he crashed, Shade said, and the man had opioids in his system. Officers found in the truck a bottle of Gabapentin, a nonopioid medication used to treat seizures and neuropathic pain, according to the search warrants.
The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not identify people who have been accused of or are under suspicion of committing a crime until he or she has been charged.
The man “also stated to other officers that he had other medications that were prescribed to him but that he had not taken any medications for the past 2 days,” according to the search warrant.
Shade said detectives were awaiting a toxicology report before arresting the man, but that criminal charges were imminent and could range from automobile homicide to DUI or, at a minimum, a DUI metabolite charge.
City Administrator Scott Darrington declined to comment or give information about the case until he’d seen and “digested” the police report.
“We’re not saying anything until we have a complete understanding of what went on, and that’s going to be through the Provo PD investigation,” Darrington said.
Prosecutors haven’t filed charges in connection with the crash, and, according to the unsealed documents, police detectives are looking into the utility truck driver’s cellphone records to see whether he may have been distracted by his phone during the crash. They also asked for prescription records.