A Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper was hurt Tuesday when a semi crashed into a patrol vehicle on Interstate 80 near Rawlins.
The Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) reports the trooper was leaving the scene of a prior crash at mile marker 201 west of Rawlins at 11:38 a.m. and attempted to turn into the median from the right shoulder.
The semitrailer, traveling westbound, struck the left side of the trooper’s vehicle while it was in the left-hand lane.
The trooper was taken to Memorial Hospital of Carbon County in Rawlins with minor injuries and was released later that day. The truck driver was not hurt and was not ticketed.
When the WHP shared details of the incident, the agency reminded Wyoming drivers that they must yield to emergency vehicles at the scene of an incident.
Details about the crash weren’t available from the WHP by publication time, but a witness who came upon the aftermath says that failure to yield was evident, and frustrating.
The Initial Incident
Pinedale area resident Paul Ulrich was driving along I-80 when he came upon the initial crash the trooper responded to.
“I was there within two to three minutes after the initial accident happened,” he said. “There were no first responders there at the time, so I stopped to provide some assistance to the people in both vehicles.”
Ulrich said the passenger vehicle had crashed into a guardrail on the median right after an underpass. The family of four inside the vehicle told Ulrich they had been forced off the road by the erratic driving of the semi.
“They said that the semi was weaving back and forth and drove them off the road,” he said. “Then the semi continued going over and through the eastbound lanes of I-80. I am absolutely shocked that it didn't take out any eastbound vehicles given the amount of traffic on I-80 on a daily basis.”
Ulrich stayed at the scene until the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office and an ambulance arrived.
The second incident with the WHP trooper and the westbound semitruck happened after he drove off and continued eastbound on I-80.
I needed to get out of the way to let our fine first responders do their job,” he said. “It couldn't have been a minute or two after I left that the highway patrolman was hit.”
Slow Down!
When the WHP posted details and photos of the incident on social media, the response was critical of the trooper. Many people wanted to know if the lights and sirens were on at the time of the incident.
For Ulrich, those details aren’t as important as the response, or lack thereof, of the passing traffic on I-80.
When he was on the scene of the initial accident, he found the lack of situational awareness by other drivers “shocking.”
“We were trying to help somebody clearly in need of help, there were multiple vehicles pulled over, and traffic wasn’t even slowing down,” he said. “It was very frustrating and one of the reasons I felt I needed to get the hell out of there.”
When the vehicles from the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office arrived, emergency lights engaged, but it seemed to make no difference.
Ulrich said traffic kept speeding along as if nothing and nobody was there.
“Traffic continued at the same speed, even with the sheriff’s office right there,” he said. “There was no reduction of speed in either the westbound or eastbound lanes. I was pretty disturbed by the lack of any situational awareness.”
Your Life At Their Wheel
Any active response to an incident on I-80 is dangerous, given the volume of traffic and high speed of travel on Wyoming’s busiest highway.
That was evident in December 2022, when a semitrailer plowed into a Rawlins ambulance that was in the middle of responding to another crash, killing one crew member and seriously injuring another.
Nevertheless, Ulrich thinks the “lack of concern” shown by the other drivers unnecessarily endangers crash victims and first responders.
“When you respond to an accident on the highway, you're putting your life in your hands,” he said. “The lack of attention I saw from the other drivers to an active crash scene was shocking and very concerning. The speed of vehicle traffic on I-80 was significant, even after the sheriff’s office responded.”
Based on what he saw, Ulrich doesn’t believe emergency lights made any difference if the oncoming traffic wasn’t slowing down. His takeaway from the multiple incidents isn’t that drivers weren't responding appropriately — they weren't responding at all.
“I was pretty frustrated and disturbed by the lack of any situational awareness,” he said. “There wasn’t a needless vehicle that pulled over to respond to those incidents. I was concerned for everybody’s safety even when the first responders arrived."
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
