Driver crashes, totals car while asleep at wheel

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CEDAR CITY – On his way home from work Sunday morning, a Cedar City man fell asleep at the wheel, crossed Main Street in Cedar City and drove through Top Spot parking lot before crossing 600 South and crashing his Saturn into the curb at Renaissance Plaza.

A manager at Top Spot, 650 S. Main Street, called the incident in to Cedar Public Safety Dispatch at about 7:50 a.m., Cedar City Police Officer Kirk Lovell said. The man was traveling north on Main Street when he fell asleep just before the family-owned restaurant and began to drift.

“It’s kitty-corner across there,” he said. “So, if you can imagine the car kind of drifting, it’s just a straight shot, so there’s nothing really stopping (the car) from going straight through there.”

The car was moving at a faster rate than usual and caught her attention, Top Spot Manager Ester Halterman said. Just as she looked up at the “little blue car,” she said, she saw it swerve into the parking lot, just barely missing the building by about two feet.

Halterman described what she saw:

He flew across our parking lot, taking out a whole bunch of our shrubs, through some railroad ties, went airborne, went straight, went over the curb, went airborne again and stopped about three feet in front of the building across the street.

Rocks and debris hit windows and shook the building as the Saturn made its way up the curb toward the Top Spot parking lot, scaring her, Halterman said.

Concerned that someone might have been badly injured, she said, she called the crash in right away. The front wheels were where the front seat should have been, she said, explaining that the whole front end of the Saturn was destroyed in the crash.

Though the Saturn’s air bag deployed and the car was rendered inoperable, Lovell said, the driver walked away uninjured from the wreck.

“He walked away with only a bloody nose,” Halterman said.

Halterman said that if she had parked her car in the same spot she did almost every day, it would have been totaled because it would have been right in the path of the out-of-control Saturn.

There were no drugs or alcohol suspected to have contributed to this incident, Lovell said, but the driver was issued a citation for improper lane change.

This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings.

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15 Comments

  • ladybugavenger September 13, 2015 at 5:41 pm

    Cited for ” improper lane change” love those tickets, some people in accidents get em, some people dont

    • fun bag September 13, 2015 at 8:11 pm

      Wow that’s something isn’t it. He must have flashed the officers his LDS get-out-of-jail-free-card. Just think, if he would’ve killed someone they might have added a jaywalking ticket to the mix, or my favorite, “improper lane travel”

      • mesaman September 13, 2015 at 8:40 pm

        Shove it you Mormon hating mungo.

        • 42214 September 14, 2015 at 3:25 pm

          What is a mungo?

          • mesaman September 14, 2015 at 4:14 pm

            That’s a mongo first class.

          • Dexter September 14, 2015 at 4:54 pm

            It’s one of them dillydowhacker thingamajig whatamacallems.

          • 42214 September 14, 2015 at 4:54 pm

            OK, that’s real clear. What is a mongo?

          • munchie September 14, 2015 at 8:24 pm

            “Mongo only pawn in game of life”

        • fun bag September 15, 2015 at 9:17 pm

          i’m also not clear on what a “mongo” is…?

      • aviatormh September 14, 2015 at 8:26 am

        You know fun bag I figured out why it is you think mormons act like they are better than you. It’s because you walk around with your bigot showing. I know what your going to say “I’m not a bigot” here is websters definition for you \ˈbi-gət\
        noun
        : a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person; especially : a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group (such as a racial or religious group) sounds like the shoe fits to me.

        • 42214 September 14, 2015 at 5:06 pm

          Looks like you actually got a dictionary finally. It should be good reading for you. Don’t forget to study the punctuation in the front.

          • aviatormh September 15, 2015 at 12:58 am

            I’ll add punctuation to the list. Thanks 🙂

  • Dexter September 13, 2015 at 10:43 pm

    Well I hope he enjoys his new insurance rates.

    • indy-vfr September 14, 2015 at 7:41 am

      Insurance?…..who needs that!

  • fun bag September 14, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    i think i been forbidden from interacting with “mesaman”

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