A 37-year-old Logan man died Wednesday morning near Tremonton when he lost control of his car on an icy patch of Utah 30 and was hit by an oncoming Suburban.
Dat Tran, of Logan, was pronounced dead about 6 a.m. from massive head and torso injuries suffered in the collision, Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Mason Haycock said.
Tran was traveling west on Utah 30 near Beaver Dam in Box Elder County when he lost control of his BMW and spun into oncoming traffic.
"He lost control in the snow and went sideways into her (the other driver's) lane of travel and then she hit him squarely on the driver door," Haycock said.
The driver of the Suburban, Suzette Hernandez, 54, of Beaver Dam, was taken to Logan Regional Hospital for facial injuries she suffered in the crash.
"She did hit her face on the steering wheel and she's got a couple of dozen stitches in her nose," Haycock said.
Hernandez is expected to make a full recovery.
A third vehicle traveling behind Tran's BMW also sustained damage in the crash. The driver, 24-year-old Raland Balls, of Hyrum, was uninjured.
"He was unable to avoid them," Haycock said.
The pickup sustained about $1,500 in damage.
According to Haycock, a complete sheet of ice covered the highway from Collinston in Box Elder County to the bottom of Petersboro on Wednesday morning. The area was closed to traffic until about 7:30 a.m. because of the hazardous road conditions.
"We had probably around 50 vehicles that were stalled on the road in different places or had slid off," Haycock said. "Once they became stopped they couldn't get going again. It was literally like a skating rink."
About 40 traffic collisions, including the fatality and four other accidents with minor injuries, occurred in Cache Valley between midnight Tuesday and 11 a.m. Wednesday.
"We couldn't even count the amount of miscellaneous slide-offs (we responded to)," UHP Sgt. Rick Mayo said.
Ironically, Mayo's patrol car also sustained about $1,000 in damage Wednesday morning when it was accidentally struck by a tow truck that had shown up to help him at a crash site in Hyrum.
"I got my car tagged too," Mayo said. "No one is exempt from this."
In a separate multi-vehicle collision near Utah State University, the patrol car of Logan Sgt. Bret Randall sustained several hundred dollars in damage when another car slid into it.
"He went to assist a car that crashed, and as he was there another car came down the hill and hit into him," Logan police Capt. Greg Ridler said.
Logan police Lt. Dave Tarbet said Logan police responded to 18 crashes Wednesday, including a car that slid off the road and hit a tree and another car that hit a horse. No serious injuries were reported in any of the crashes.
Another sore spot for law enforcement Wednesday was a dip in the road on Utah Highway 165 in Hyrum, near Mountain Crest High School.
"It turns into a skating rink," Mayo said. "Those high school kids driving to school with their limited experience of driving is kind of scary. Most of the people involved in crashes there today (Wednesday) were high school students or faculty. There were at least six crashes in the Hyrum dip area."
Car crash incidents began to subside when road conditions improved Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reported from Salt Lake City that the season's first snowstorm dropped an inch or three on northern Utah's foothills and caused several car wrecks Wednesday morning.
Sgt. Doug McCleve, Utah Highway Patrol spokesman, said, Sardine Canyon, the route between Brigham City and Logan, was temporarily closed because of the snow. Snowfall was even heavier at higher elevations.
Mark Eubank, chief meteorologist for KSL, said the storm was caused by a cold pocket of air sitting over Idaho, Oregon, and Montana. This low-pressure system moved in from Canada and stalled in the northern United States.
Snow isn't unusual in Salt Lake City at this time of year.
''The average date for the first inch on the benches is about Oct. 31,'' Eubank said. For valley floors, on average the first inch of snowfall is recorded Nov. 1.
