A truck driver claimed he choked on a candy bar before crashing his semi-truck in Uinta County earlier this week, but police think he was likely asleep at the wheel.
Bridger Valley Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded to a semi- rollover with the driver trapped inside on Sunday evening near Lyman on Interstate 80.
It took emergency personnel around 90 minutes to extract the truck driver, who was taken to Evanston Regional Hospital for injuries he sustained in the crsh.
Lt. Matt Harnell of the Uinta County Sheriff’s Office told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday that the driver told police that he was choking on a candy bar when he crossed a road lane, then overcorrected in steering before the truck flipped.
However, police don’t believe that this was the case.
“They think he was asleep,” Harnell said. “We see it a lot, not even just with truck drivers, but with a person in any type of vehicle. You just start looking at the evidence at the scene and put everything together.”
Harnell also said that the driver received broken legs in the collision due to the steering wheel collapsing on them when the semi flipped.
