Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Cade Brenchley remembers getting out of his patrol car and starting his walk toward the accident, but doesn’t remember much else until he regained consciousness and found himself flat on his back.
“I do remember getting hit, but at the time I didn’t know what it was,” he said Tuesday. “I just remember feeling a jolt and everything going black and I honestly thought I was coming out of a restless sleep. And then I woke up and I was face up, and there was a car tire a foot to my right, and it took me a few seconds to realize where I was and what I was doing.
“And I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve been hit. How did this happen?’”
In 2018, Brenchley had just pulled up to a crash in snowy Sardine Canyon and was walking along the shoulder to the crash scene, when a young woman, who he said was inexperienced at driving in bad weather, slid out of control and hit him from behind. The dramatic crash was recorded on Brenchley’s dashboard camera from his patrol car.
The video shows Brenchley being tossed several feet into the air, hitting the car that he was about to check on, and landing next to the vehicle.
On Tuesday, Brenchley and his wife, Lindsay Brenchley, recounted that traumatic day as part of Crash Responder Safety Week. With winter quickly approaching, the Utah Department of Public Safety and Utah Highway Patrol are participating in a national campaign this week to remind drivers to slow down and move over when they see police officers, firefighters, EMTs and other first responders, as well as tow truck drivers, snowplows, public works employees and others working on the side of the road.
In both 2023 and 2024, there were more than 500 crashes in Utah involving emergency vehicles that were already responding to other incidents, according to the UHP, resulting in three deaths in 2023 and four in 2024. As of Nov. 10, the number of crashes involving roadside responders was down 9%, according to troopers, and there have been zero fatalities.
The No. 1 contributor of those crashes was speed, UHP said. And law enforcement vehicles have been, by far, the most common vehicle hit while in the shoulder over the past two years.
Brenchley says winter is more dangerous than the summer driving season for troopers on the shoulder. In many cases, a driver will come up on an incident and see the flashing red and blue emergency lights, panic, and instinctively hit the brake pedal too hard.
“That’s definitely the most dangerous time, especially when there’s snow and ice, people just going too fast. There’s definitely more traffic on the road during the summertime. But when roads are dry, it’s usually a little safer for those on the side of the road,” he said.
Brenchley recalls that when he was hit, he needed a few minutes to figure out what had just happened.
“I had four broken ribs, two of them broke in two places, I had a broke shoulder blade. There was a little bit of panic, I wiggled my foot (and) looked down at it. I wiggled my hands to make sure I had feeling. I cleared my throat to make sure I didn’t taste any blood. And I thought, ‘OK, I think I’m going to be OK.’ And then my thoughts immediately went to my family and I thought, ‘This is going to be rough,’” he recalled.
Lindsay Brenchley says she and their four children were waiting for him to get off work and come home for dinner when a Logan police officer knocked on her door to tell her that her husband had been hit.
Lindsay beat the ambulance to the hospital by 10 minutes.
“Cade is the center of our kids’ lives, so this was something that was scary for us, not knowing for a time what the potential outcome of this was gonna be. We have friends who have passed away in the line of duty, dear friends. So the thought that maybe this was happening to us was terrifying and really impactful,” she said.
But Cade Brenchley says when he got to the hospital and saw his wife, he knew everything would be OK.
“It was good to see her face, although she was crying and she doesn’t cry very often, so I knew she was scared,” he said.
Three months later, Brenchley was back on duty. He recalled that one of the first traffic stops he made following his return was just 10 feet from where he was lying in the road, injured just months earlier.
“And I remember sitting there while the lady was getting her registration and driver’s license, and I glanced over and I remember thinking, ‘That’s right where I was laying, almost exactly,’” he said.
Today, Brenchley admits he looks over his shoulder a little more when walking up to a scene, particularly during the winter. But adds, “I didn’t have any reservations about getting back on the road.”
He also, on Tuesday, recalled the first time he watched the video of him being hit.
“Not trying to be funny, but I just watched it and thought, ‘That looked like it hurt,’” he said with a smile.