DAVIS COUNTY, Utah — It was a recipe for disaster: a wrong-way driver on the freeway and another car with two young men traveling in the same lane.
“I just remember the cop coming behind us so we got out of the lane,” said Logan Chapman.
Logan Chapman and Landon O'Camb were driving from Provo to Logan early Sunday morning when sirens and flashing lights flooded I-15 in Davis County.
“He got in front of us, swerving in all lanes of traffic to slow us down,” Chapman said.
A trooper was slowing down traffic but Logan and Landon didn't know why.
“We couldn't really see what was on the other side of the bend. We thought there was debris or wreck,” Chapman said.
Chapman and O'Camb didn't realize the trooper had received a call of a wrong-way driver traveling south in the northbound lanes.
“Right as he slowed us down, we see headlights coming at us from around the bend,” O'Camb said.
The trooper sped toward the oncoming car and did what he was trained to do: protect.
“The officer pulled out to the right and then darted to the left and just clipped the back end of the car,” Chapman said.
Video captured on the trooper's dashboard camera shows the patrol car crashing into a barrier. The suspect’s car went spinning across all the lanes and came to a stop on the other side of the freeway.
“He managed to slow us down just in time. If we hadn't passed him earlier, if he hadn't been around, we likely would have collided with him head on,” O'Camb said.
That's because Logan and Landon were traveling in the same lane as the wrong way driver.
“There was no way we could have seen him coming. We would have been going pretty fast, 75-80 miles an hour. We would have hit him head on,” O'Camb said.
Chapman and O'Camb have a message for the trooper who prevented a tragedy from happening.
“We're thankful you were there. Right time, right place, do the right thing,” Landon said.
Miraculously, no one was hurt. The trooper who responded is Jeremy Horne, a UHP veteran who works graveyard shifts in Davis County.
The wrong-way driver was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.
