Trucker perished after Utah windstorm caused trailer door to slam into him

A truck driver lost his life to high winds in Utah while he was delivering items to a location in South Salt Lake on Tuesday.

The fatal accident occurred around 8:20 a.m. on Tuesday, September 8, at Industrial Injection & Turbo Service in South Salt Lake, Utah.

Sixty-one year old truck driver Donald Hardy had just unloaded at the location when high winds caught the door of his trailer as he was standing near it, causing it to strike him, according to local news outlet Fox 13 Now.

After he was hit by the door, Hardy fell, striking his head on the ground.

Hardy was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead from head trauma.

Hardy’s wife Alissa-Joy Hardy witnessed the fatal accident. She said, “He hit the ground so hard, the hearing aide in his right ear is broken. The ear that never touched the ground, the hearing aide is shattered. He’s retired military — Navy. His wishes were to be cremated, and he wanted to be sprinkled in the ocean.”

Alissa-Joy Hardy told police that she and her husband had sold all of their possessions and were working to earn a living over the road.

While the windstorm caused at least 45 trucks to blow over in Utah on Tuesday, Hardy was the state’s only wind-related fatality. Several Utah counties enacted truck travel bans due to wind speeds of more than 100 m.p.h.

Alissa-Joy Hardy said that UDOT should have closed the roads. “Had they closed down the highway, we would have (stayed) at the truck stop. We wouldn’t have delivered. The accident wouldn’t have ever happened. Donald would still be alive,” she said.