Utah County deputies’ fast response time saves crashed motorcyclist’s life

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    SARATOGA SPRINGS, Utah (KSL) — Less than a minute.

That’s how fast two Utah County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene of a motorcycle crash on Sunday that left a 48-year-old West Jordan woman critically injured.

And thanks to the quick response time, that woman was alive in the hospital and expected to recover as of Thursday.

The call came in just after 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. A man reported his wife had crashed her motorcycle on state Route 68 just four miles south of Saratoga Springs, according to a Utah County Sheriff’s Office news release.

Utah Highway Patrol dispatched a trooper to the crash but two Utah County deputies — Amber Steele and Tony Sorensen — just happened to be less than a mile away patrolling when they were dispatched to the scene.

Steele, who’s only been on patrol training for a month, drove their patrol car to the scene within about 30 seconds. Once there, Sorensen immediately grabbed his equipment bag and headed over to the injured woman.

The woman had crashed into a guardrail after she lost control in a southbound curve and crossed into northbound lanes, officials said.

Her left arm had been nearly severed above the elbow and she was bleeding profusely. The woman’s husband had tied a belt above the wound as a tourniquet, but it wasn’t able to get tight enough to stop the bleeding.

After arriving, Sorensen applied another tourniquet above the belt and the bleeding stopped.

Meanwhile, Steele had called for a medical helicopter which arrived within 16 minutes and transported the woman to a hospital.

Saratoga Springs Fire Department paramedics arrived 12 minutes after the initial call and told the two deputies that without their actions — especially Sorensen’s tourniquet — the woman would have likely died.

Amazingly, Sorensen had never used a tourniquet in the field before. But thanks to his training, he knew exactly what to do.

“After that, I mean you know, that’s probably one thing I would tell people to have in a go-bag,” he advised.

Since the incident, he’s even ordered some tourniquets online to have in his car even when he’s off duty — something he recommended all Utahns should consider doing.

“You never know when you’re going to need it,” Sorensen added. “Having it saved her life … You understand how important they are.”

Sorensen said it took at least a few hours for what paramedics told him to sink in.

“Knowing that you did save somebody — so that person can spend more time with somebody — is rewarding,” he said.

In his five years on patrol, Sorensen said he’s seen multiple motorcycle crashes where there are no survivors.

“Losing somebody is tragic — especially like that,” he said. “It is rewarding when you actually save one.”

Given the location of the crash, Utah County Sheriff’s officials noted, the helicopter and paramedic response times were “remarkable.”

But without the two deputies, those remarkable response times would’ve likely been too late.

While some may call Sorensen’s actions heroic, he simply sees it as getting the job done.

“I just do a job and that’s all I do,” he said. “I don’t think of myself as a hero at all.”

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