OGDEN — A three-car wreck tied up northbound traffic on Interstate 15 at the 21st Street exit for more than an hour Thursday afternoon while troopers picked up hundreds of stuffed toys and quarters, which spewed out of a minivan that rolled multiple times.
Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Sean Cannon said a white minivan driven by Bonnie Patzer, 52, of Willard, was going north in the far left lane of I-15 when the driver apparently tried to get to the right-hand lane to use the 21st Street exit.
He said she moved to her right and found the lane blocked by a white sedan driven by Mike King, 25, of Brigham City.
King and other witnesses said it looked as if Patzer didn’t see the sedan and clipped it.
Patzer overcorrected to the left, and her car swerved sideways and rolled several times.
Meanwhile, Cannon said, King’s car flipped around after being clipped and was hit broadside on the driver’s door by a red pickup driven by Brandon Christensen, 19.
The pickup tipped on its side and slid into the concrete barriers in the middle of the highway.
Patzer services vending machines that use a mechanical claw to dispense toys.
Simmons said Patzer’s van was full of bags of stuffed toys and several bags of quarters, much of which flew out as the van rolled.
Multicolored toys and shining quarters mingled with broken glass across the pavement following the wreck. Documents describing the maintenance and repair of the machines were spread more than 100 feet down the highway.
Austin Reeve, of Hooper, was in a car following King’s and saw the accident unfold.
“(Patzer) rolled it about seven times. It originally was back at the turn,” he said, pointing to a curve in I-15 several hundred feet back.
Cannon said Patzer was transported to Ogden Regional Medical Center after complaining of being in “a great deal of pain.”
Neither King nor Christensen were injured.
Cannon said everyone was wearing seat belts and air bags properly deployed in King’s car.
“Bonnie’s definitely alive because of that,” he said, referring to her seat belts. “She could have been ejected.”
He said Patzer was cited for unsafe lane movement.
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