By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
The expected 40,000 Easter visitors at Little Sahara Sand Dunes in West Juab County did not materialize.
There were no fatalities at the recreation site but there were several accidents requiring air medical flights from the Dunes.
The area was still plenty busy with approximately 25,000 sand enthusiasts who did not let the earliness of the Easter holiday spoil their fun.
“We did have a sad accident,” said Alden Orme, Juab County Sheriff. “No one died but two children were injured.”
A mother, near Oasis, was out on the sand with her two children, a 9-year old girl and a 3-year old boy on Sunday. The mother was driving the recreation vehicle up the side of a dune when the vehicle rolled.
“The girl grabbed the roll bar as the vehicle overturned and three of her fingers were cut off,” said Orme. “The boy had a severely compound fracture of his leg.”
Orme said the boy had also had to be revived at the site by emergency medical technicians before being taken by Air Med to a hospital.
He said the names of the victims were not available because those involved in providing care had not yet finished the official report.
There were, in total, seven Air Med flights and two of those were the children involved in the rollover.
“Due to the earliness of Easter this year, and to the coldness during the week prior to Easter, we didn’t get the crowd we had anticipated,” said Orme. “Only the ATV enthusiasts and their families visited the Dunes this year.”
Other families, he said, must have found other things to do that did not involve camping or being outdoors.
Easter is early this year. Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20 or the first day of spring). This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see. The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). Next year, Easter Sunday will be April 12, 2009 on the western calendar.
He said he had gone up in the UHP helicopter to look over the area. Usually there are camps strung out all through the West Desert at places like Topaz Mountain, and other sites. That was not the case this year.
“There were a few camps at Cherry Creek,” he said.
Salt Creek Canyon, in East Juab County, was still snow packed and there were no camps there. Yuba Reservoir still had ice on the water, though each day there is less, and so there was not the usual interest from boating fans.
“The fewer number of visitors did allow us to be more pro-active in enforcement,” said Orme. “Eight of the officers at the Little Sahara wrote 29-alcohol related tickets for underage drinkers in five hours.”
The goal of proactive law enforcement is to prevent or suppress juvenile drinking and driving before it takes place or before accidents occur.
Police have traditionally engaged in reactive enforcement by responding to impaired driving as patrol and traffic officers have detected it. Detecting, stopping, and arresting impaired drivers removes them from the streets, and the sanctions those offenders receive acts as a deterrent in the future.
“It was impressive,” said Orme. “When there are fewer numbers of people at the Sand Dunes we have time for proactive enforcement.”
Keeping the underage drinkers in control helps prevent accidents. Orme said there were 110 police officers at the Little Sahara during Easter weekend.
His deputies, of course, were there as were members of the Juab County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue. In addition, there were members of the BLM staff and fire crew, BLM Rangers, the West Juab County Ambulance, Utah County Deputies, Sanpete County Deputies and Parks and Recreation officers.
Brett Ostler, the county fire marshal, was also on hand.
There were several groups from the Utah Department of Public Safety, said Orme. Utah Highway Patrol troopers, SBI (State Bureau of Investigation) Alcohol Enforcement Division and the DUI Squad.
“It was really a team effort,” said Orme.
Because of that effort, he said, there were as many DUI tickets issued as there were in the years when the expected 30,000 or 40,000 visitors did spend Easter weekend at the Dunes.
There were 50 underage alcohol tickets issued and 25 DUI tickets written.
He said there were a few fights but there were not as many as in previous years and there were none that could not be handled quickly.
“We did one thing differently this year,” said Orme. “We had the UHP Command Center and mobile communications repeater at the Sand Dunes all during the Easter weekend.”
The OmniLink used made it so that the VHF wide band radio frequencies used in rural areas and the state’s new backbone 800 MHz radio system could communicate.
This year, he said, instead of having dispatch in Nephi at the count jail dispatch center do the work, a dispatcher from his office was assigned to the Little Sahara and a dispatcher from the Richfield UHP was also assigned.
“Every year, communications has been a problem,” he said. “This year, we did not have that problem.”
Another new tool for law enforcement had been a new policy which was implemented at the recreation site. No parking was allowed within 10-feet of a road.
“That kept it so normal traffic could get through and ATVs could travel along the side,” he said. “Last year, the roads were so congested because of the parking problem that emergency and law enforcement vehicles had a difficult time getting through.”
In fact, said Orme, this seemed like the quietest and easiest Easter, from a law enforcement stand point, that he could remember.
