‘The guy was completely drunk’: Witnesses describe moments after fatal Springville crash

SPRINGVILLE, Utah (ABC4) — Witnesses describe the scene of a crash where a drunk driver reportedly hit and killed a man in Springville on Wednesday.

“First I saw a lamp post getting knocked over and the truck on a curb. Then I saw a bunch of people surrounding the truck and that’s when I realized someone got hit,” Landon Owens, who works at a Jimmy Johns nearby, said.

He and his co-worker, Burton Sutherland, were some of the first to respond to the scene where a man, now identified as Matthew Daines, shoved his wife out of the way as he saw a truck approaching, taking the entire impact of the truck.

“He was very out of it. He didn’t seem to know what was happening. His truck reeked of alcohol. He was blindly following directions. We asked him to keep his hands on the wheel and he just kind of slowly complied,” Owens said when asked about the suspect, Travis Mcintrye, 41, who has been booked into jail on 10 counts including automobile homicide.

“The guy was completely drunk. Stone-cold. No emotion the entire time. He was still trying to go straight, over the guy (victim). A good samaritan got him to shut off his car,” Sutherland noted.

Sutherland was one of the witnesses who called 911. “Me and my other co-worker, Burton, grabbed towels, napkins, water and we rushed outside as fast as we could. We gave all the rags, napkins to the people applying aid. Then one of the ladies asked me if I could stop the man from trying to leave,” Owens noted.

Sutherland said that when he spoke to the wife on scene, he got to know that the couple lived down the street and were on their way to Little Caesars. He said, “I took her near this sign to shield the view from her because if she would see that happening to her husband, that’s going to be way worse for her… I ran inside and got her chips, water to keep her calm in that moment.”

The community is now calling Daines a hero. “You don’t see a lot of situations like this where someone has laid down their life for someone else,” Whitney Van Pelt, a K9 officer with Springville Police told ABC4.com.

Owens and Sutherland saying it has been a lot to process. “It’s a lot more real. I have been a much more careful driver since.”

Springville police are cautioning drivers to follow the rules and don’t drive drunk. They say, “This is an extreme, chaotic, terrible situation we are put in when these drivers decide to drive drunk. And there is really no excuse for it. There is no excuse to drive drunk. This man didn’t only change his life and his family’s life but a complete stranger’s life because of his decision to drive drunk.”