Jury trial begins for Sandy man charged in crash that killed Westlake High student

PROVO — Amber Sais testified that she heard a “very loud” acceleration behind her as she was stopping for a yellow light on Redwood Road in Saratoga Springs in May 2021.

Looking in her rearview mirrors, she saw a car quickly change lanes as it was coming up on her. She told her young son, “There goes another speeder. He’s going to run a red light.”

Sais said she was the second car back at the intersection when she saw the car run a red light, heard a collision and saw two cars slam into a retaining wall.

She immediately called 911, because she said she knew there would be major damage. In a phone call played in court Monday, she told the dispatcher medical aid would definitely be needed.

“The cars are completely smooshed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the people inside are dead,” she told the dispatcher.

Since Sais is a registered nurse, she went to help — first going to Daniel Stanislav MacBeth, the driver of the car she saw pass her, and asked him questions to see if he was coherent. Then she said she went to the second car, which had been turning left off Redwood Road onto Harvest Hills Boulevard, and tried to find a pulse for the young driver.

She got emotional as she told the jury she wishes she would have pushed past concerns from others at the scene about moving the young driver and tried to start CPR sooner.

“I know what to do, and I wanted to do it, and I feel like I kind of froze because the people around me didn’t feel like we should move his body. … As soon as that happened, I turned around and I started running down the road because I had seen an ambulance pull up, and I just started yelling, ‘He needs CPR,'” she said.

Ammon Chandler Blake, 16, died when his car was hit. MacBeth, of Sandy, is accused of running a red light and hitting the car that day while driving under the influence and on a revoked license.

Please read Emily Ashcraft’s complete story at KSL.com.