ST. GEORGE –Just after 9 a.m. Thursday a white truck travelling south on Interstate 15 near mile marker 9 struck an SUV, overcorrected, and was sent rolling over through a fence, and onto a frontage road near the Middleton area of 2375 East Red Hills Parkway.
Lauren Swartz, 69, and Charlotte Swartz, 76, were removed from the white Toyota Tacoma and transported to the hospital in critical condition. The driver of the SUV, Dixie Poulsen, 31, was able to maintain control of her vehicle, and was uninjured.
Cpl. Todd Johnson, public information officer for the Utah Highway Patrol said that he had received the report from officers on scene around 4 p.m. and that it did not yet indicate factors that may have contributed to the accident.
“In a crash like this, seatbelts could have minimized injuries,” Johnson said, although he also said he did not know whether the injured had been wearing seatbelts.
Because the accident originated on the Interstate, officers from the Highway Patrol were dispatched, and arrived quickly, along with responders from the fire department.
Red Hills Parkway in the area was closed to traffic until the accident was cleared.
City workers were also called to the scene to fix the disturbed landscaping.
According to a study by the Utah Department of Public Safety a vehicle crash occurs approximately every ten minutes in the state of Utah, and a person is injured in a crash every 24 minutes.
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Larry Swartz is my papa. he is doing ok. everyone in pa is praying for him n his wife.