SALT LAKE CITY - It's been three weeks after his near brush with death, and Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Devyn Gurney is back on his feet, or at least one foot, and speaking about that day.
"I didn't have time to think," explained Trooper Gurney. "I saw my patrol vehicle coming at me. I didn't even have time to think, to move."
Right before the horrible accident, Trooper Gurney had pulled another driver over along the southbound lanes of I-15 in Lindon.
While he was walking back to his patrol vehicle, he suddenly saw his car come flying at him. Anther driver in a black SUV had crashed into his patrol car.
"I recall I was kind of looking up at the sky on my back and people were already around me," he said of the aftermath.
Gurney's wife, Summer, said she did not get a call, but instead another trooper came by her work at a preschool that morning and told her Devyn was in an accident but was expected to be OK.
"It was a little scary, I'll be honest," Summer Gurney said. "You send your husband out there every day to save other people's lives, help protect them, knowing that he is risking his own life, it can be a little bit hard."
The Gurneys had a message for drivers: pay attention when you're behind the wheel, and put down the distractions so that all drivers, including law enforcement, are safer on the road.
"There are a lot of distractions out there these days," said Trooper Gurney. "Cell phones, kids: There is a lot of things going on in a vehicle, but any time you're in a vehicle, your goal is to get where you're going safely."
UHP said the driver who crashed into Gurney's patrol car had fallen asleep behind the wheel. No one involved suffered life threatening injuries.
