By STEPHEN SMITH
A BYU student was run over and trapped underneath a car after he was thrown from his motorcycle Saturday night in Provo.
W. Randall Cone, 19, a freshman from Potomac, Md., was headed southbound on a Suzuki 250 dirtbike on University Avenue when he was struck by a northbound Ford Probe as it was turning west on Bulldog Avenue, said Officer Nick Kogianes of the Provo Police Department.
After he struck the car, Cone flew over the motorcycle and landed on the pavement, at which point the Probe ran him over. The car then stopped in the intersection, according to Provo Police.
Hilary Hadley, 21, was charged with failing to yield, Kogianes said. Hadley is a senior from Englewood, Colo. majoring in elementary education.
Cone was transported to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center as soon as rescue workers were able to free him from underneath the vehicle. Neither the driver nor the passenger of the Probe were injured in the accident, Kogianes said.
Matt Ockander, 25, of Calabasas, Calif., a senior majoring in humanities, arrived on the scene soon after the accident.
Ockander said that after he approached the car, he could see that the car was resting on Cone’s hip and that Cone was pinned down by the car and unable to move. He said he could hear Cone saying, “get it off me.”
“He was writhing in pain,” Ockander said.
Ockander retrieved a car jack from his own vehicle and raised the car off Cone’s hip. “It took about ten inches to get the car off him,” he said.
Firefighters arrived a few minutes afterwards and were able to remove Cone from underneath the car using cribbing and hydraulic jacks to raise the car.
Cone is being treated at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center and is listed in stable condition.
In a telephone interview on Sunday, Cone said he doing well. He said he suffered several scrapes, abrasions and burns over his body. However, he said, “nothing was broken.”
Cone did receive a third-degree burn on his right hip that will require a skin graph, he said.
Cone said the burn was a result of the car’s muffler pinning Cone to the ground until the car was jacked off him.
Cone said he doesn’t remember much of the actual accident. While he was underneath the car, he said, he only remembered how heavy the car was and thinking “get it off me.”
“It was one of those freak accidents. It could have been a lot worse,” he said.
Cone said the skin graph surgery will take place on Tuesday and he will be in the hospital until the end of the week.
Rob Rogers, 23, a junior from Farmington, majoring in journalism, who saw the accident, said the dirtbike collided with the right, front side of the car.
Cone was thrown from his bike, went over the front of the car and was “pulled underneath” the car, Rogers said.
Rogers said the traffic light was changing to yellow just before the accident happened.
Jose Valle, 24, from Mexico, another accident witness said both vehicles were trying to “catch the light,” before they collided.
Valle also said, and Kogianes confirmed, Cone was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.
Kogianes, a member of the traffic accident investigation team of the Provo Police, said Cone was extremely lucky.
These types of accidents are “always a lot worse than this one turned out to be,” he said.
