Warning: Some viewer may find this video disturbing.
Shocking dashcam video shows Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Cade Brenchley being hit by a car while responding to a crash over the weekend.
“I’m truly grateful to be sitting here talking to you,” said Brenchley, two days after the hard-to-watch incident. “It was not my favorite day.”
Sitting with his wife and four children at the Logan Regional Medical Center, Brenchley described the conditions he encountered Sunday night while responding to several crashes in Sardine Canyon, about 60 miles north of Salt Lake City.
“It was very slick and slushy and the roads were snow covered,” said Brenchley, KTLA sister station KSTU reported.
He had just gotten out of his patrol car to help a stranded driver when everything went black. What Brenchley didn’t see was the driver behind him lose control and slam into him, sending the patrolman flying through the air and into the stranded vehicle.
“I woke up and saw snow and I was laying there and it knocked the wind out of me and I was gasping for breath,” he said.
Three of his cousins were among the paramedics who first responded. He was rushed to the hospital but his only injuries were four broken ribs, a broken shoulder blade and road rash.
“It’s miraculous, though, that this is all I have,” Brenchley said.
He added that the driver who struck him not only stopped to check on him as he lay in the road, but later visited Brenchley in the hospital.
“She’s not to be vilified,” Brenchley said. “She did make a mistake and I think she’s learned from it.”
The dashcam video was released Tuesday by the Utah Department of Public Safety, which urged drivers to slow down.
Brenchley’s wife, Lindsay, has only watched the video once.
“Even knowing he’s OK, I don’t like watching him fly through the air like that. It’s intense,” Lindsay Brenchley said.
However, she’s hoping other people will watch the video and learn from it.
“When there’s snow on the road, you just need to check your ego and slow down,” Cade Brenchley said.
“Could’ve taken me away from my kids. … We watched the video and, by all means, it probably should have,” said Brenchley.
In the first three months of 2018, Utah has already surpassed the number of troopers hit compared to the previous year, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety.
Since Jan. 1, 11 troopers have been hit on the road. Ten troopers were hit in all of 2017. Brenchley hopes by sharing his story, he can help stop that growing number so other families don’t have to rely on “miracles.”
“Our department is thankful to the multiple bystanders who came to the aide of Sgt. Brenchley after he was struck,” the Utah Department of Public Safety said in a press release. “The dash cam video shows many people on the scene who stopped to offer aide and called for help on his car radio.”