After a pickup truck plowed into a Millcreek Starbucks last Friday morning, the first responders to reach the cafe found Mitcheal Sellen unconscious and put him in an ambulance.
As more officers and rescue crews arrived, they assisted two men who had been sitting at an outside table with fatally injured therapist Joslyn Nicole Spilsbury, 48. They cut driver West Walker out of his truck and helped his two young children. Officers told reporters those three men and two children had been injured.
They didn’t initially realize Sellen, who had a previous medical condition, also had been hurt in the collision, Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said Wednesday, revealing Sellen’s connection to the crash.
In the chaos, “it was hard to keep track of who went where,” she said. And with Sellen unconscious and initially identified only as John Doe, she said, “nobody knew if it was a medical issue, or if he was hit.”
Detectives now believe Sellen, 47, of West Jordan, was struck by the truck, she said. He has not regained consciousness since Friday and remains in critical condition with injuries from the collision as well as his medical condition, she said.
The men who had been sitting with Spilsbury — Roger Kirwin, 47 of Mosamin, Australia, and Robert K. Dillard, 84, of Salt Lake City — have been treated and released.
Detectives have not interviewed the truck’s driver, Walker, 34, of Oakley, who has hired an attorney, but negotiations for an interview are underway, the sheriff said.
Investigators’ initial assumption that Walker may have been experiencing a medical issue as the truck careened into the Starbucks was based on past accident scenes, she said. There were no signs of deliberate intent, and no beer bottles or needles falling out of the truck, she said.
Investigators took blood samples from Walker, but it may take weeks for the toxicology results to become available, Rivera said.
Walker and his children were also treated and released. Investigators have not spoken to the children, and it will be up to Walker to decide whether that will happen, she said.
On Friday at 9:15 a.m., the Dodge Ram driven by Walker sped west from the parking lot of a Subway sandwich shop on the east side of Highland Drive, crossed the street, hit a curb and flipped on its side, slamming the outside table and ramming a pillar at the Starbucks at 4744 S. Highland Drive.
Spilsbury’s family has asked for privacy, and Kirwin and Dillard also don’t want to talk with media, Rivera said.
“They just want to be left alone so they can heal,” she said.
Reporter Scott Pierce contributed to this story.
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