BOX ELDER COUNTY — The Utah Highway Patrol has identified the 77-year-old woman who died in Tuesday’s wrong-way crash on I-15 in Tremonton. The accident was reported at 11:44 a.m. April 29, just north of milepost 377.
The Utah Highway Patrol reports Janet S. Hawks was driving a gray Ford Focus southbound in the northbound lanes of I-15. A white Toyota 4Runner was northbound and struck the Ford Focus head-on.
Both vehicles struck the median, and the 4Runner rolled onto its side, troopers said. Hawks, 77 and from Tremonton, was not wearing a seat belt and died at the scene. The driver of the 4Runner was wearing a seat belt, and was taken to the hospital with critical injuries that were not expected to be life-threatening.
All northbound I-15 lanes were closed for a couple of hours after the crash but were open shortly after 2 p.m.
A witness told troopers he “thought he may have seen the Ford Focus make a U-turn to go southbound from the northbound on-ramp immediately before (the) collision,” but investigators are still trying to determine why the driver was traveling the wrong way.