BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah — A crash involving multiple vehicles, including semi-trucks, shut down a portion of Interstate 15 and left three people dead in northern Utah Monday afternoon.
The crash happened in the northbound lanes of I-15 at mile marker 353, near Willard Bay State Park.
In total, five vehicles were involved in the crash, Utah Highway Patrol officials explained.
Traffic was moving slowly through the area as a semi-truck jackknifed just two miles north of the crash scene earlier Monday morning.
"For an unknown reason," UHP said, a semi-truck pulling a single trailer hit the back of a Ford passenger car and it set off a chain reaction.
The Ford hit a Nissan van that went off the left side of the road and also crashed into the semi's trailer that initially hit them, UHP reported.
The impact of the crash sent the initial semi into another semi-truck pulling double trailers and that semi-truck then hit another semi-truck.
Overall, three semi-trucks, one passenger car and one van were involved in the crash.
Utah Highway Patrol tells FOX 13 News that two people died at the scene as a result of the crash and another individual died later from their injuries.
The two individuals in the Ford passenger car, identified as 76-year-old Lewis H. Tarrant and 72-year-old Eileen C. Riordan, both from Seattle, died of their injuries.
The semi-truck driver that initially rear-ended the passenger car also died. Officials identified him as 63-year-old Bogdan Jutrznia from Burlington, Ontario.
