Woman gets hung up on power pole after crashing through yards, police say

HOLLADAY — A woman found herself in a precarious situation Tuesday after her vehicle got caught on a power pole guy-wire, leaving the front end of her car suspended 10 feet in the air.

The bizarre accident started about 8:40 a.m. Jeris Herrera, 33, told police she was driving west on 4500 South when she swerved to avoid something in the road near 980 East, said Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal.

Herrera weaved into oncoming traffic and swerved a second time when she saw other vehicles coming at her, Hoyal said. For the next 100 yards, Herrera drove over a curb, onto a sidewalk, ran over a mailbox, bus stop sign and a garbage can, and drove through three yards before crashing through a chain-link fence and hitting the guy-wire of a power pole.

The front bumper of the woman's car was caught on the wire, about 10 feet in the air. Hoyal said there were little to no skid marks, meaning the woman's path of destruction happened without braking.

Herrera was not seriously injured. Traffic in the area was shut down for two hours as investigators re-created the accident. A tow truck helped clean up the mess.

She was cited for investigation of careless driving, Hoyal said, because she committed three or more traffic violations in succession.

A check of Utah court records shows Herrera has been in trouble before for traffic violations.

Herrera had a pretrial conference scheduled on Sept. 20 in South Weber Justice Court on a separate incident of driving with expired registration and possession of drug paraphernalia in August. Earlier this year she took a plea in abeyance to a similar charge of driving with expired registration in 2010.

In 2005, she pleaded no contest in Murray Justice Court to a reduced charge of reckless driving. She was originally charged with DUI, according to court records. She also pleaded no contest to improper lane chang. In exchange, a driving on the wrong side of the road charge was dismissed.

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