ISLAND PARK, Idaho (KIFI) — The Idaho State Trooper who answered the call to the fiery crash in Island Park opens up about what he witnessed that day. Idaho state police take calls reporting crashes regularly, some are minor, but others are deadly.
The lead investigator of the island park crash, Trooper Braidan Hill, says he has never seen anything like this before.
“I didn’t really know what to expect, but as I was getting closer, you could see the black smoke coming up from the van that was already on fire. Then once I got there, both lanes of travel were completely blocked and traffic was starting to back up, and it was pretty chaotic on the scene. There are people just all over on the north and south sides of the crash,” said Hill.
Trooper Hill was the second officer to arrive on the scene. He immediately jumps into action.
“At first, I didn’t know that there had been other people who had gotten trapped inside of the vehicles. I thought that all of the occupants had gotten out of both of the vehicles until I had spoken with the deputy, who told me there was several people stuck inside of the vehicles. And I was pretty emotional at that point, just seeing those people’s reactions that the other occupants with their friends and family members and that got stuck inside the van,” said Hill.
This crash involved international travelers, making the investigation a lot longer to process than other crashes and more personal.
“We started getting calls from the Chinese consulate and Italian consulate to start making notifications to the family. And then a part of that we had to write a letter to each family stating that their family members were involved in that crash, so they could get expedited visas to come over to the United States and provide DNA samples to positively identify the deceased,” said Hill.
Idaho State Police determined the driver of the Dodge Ram crossed the center line and collided with the eastbound Mercedes van. They did confirm that alcohol was a factor. However, the case is still considered an ongoing investigation.
