ShadoWalker's Musings, Realizations and Rants!

February 15th, 1997:

We lived in Roundup, Montana a town of about 1,500 people located in Musselshell county, about 50 miles north of Billings.  Roundup had little in the terms of shopping and Mom decided that we would make the drive to Billings to do some shopping and get pictures taken for the school yearbook.

Our conversion van had been repossessed and the only other vehicle we had was an old Renault.   The Renault ran but could only fit 5 people and there were 6 of us so it was decided Mom, my sister, my older middle brother, our five week old baby brother (little John) and myself would be the ones to make the trip.  My younger middle brother stayed in Roundup with our step dad who was working on flipping a house.

I had just finished driver’s ed and was preparing to get my driver’s license and drove on the way to Billings.   The highway was two lanes and pretty lightly traveled so it made for good practice.

We arrived in Billings safely and made our way to the mall where my sister shopped and we waited in line to have pictures taken.   I sat next to my mom who had little  and watched a young child toddle by.  Mom remarked “I can’t wait for little John to be old enough to walk and start talking.”  A few minutes later it was our turn and we had pictures of little John taken as well because he wouldn’t be small for long.

It was later in the day and knowing we had an hour drive we set out for home, as we passed K-mart though my brother asked if he could see if they had a toy he wanted so we stopped and spent a few minutes in the toy section.   I remember him considering all the possibilities, and somewhat anxious to get home I prompted him to hurry.   He decided they didn’t have what he was looking for and we set out for the car again.

In our family the passenger seat was a coveted place to ride.  It caused so much contention that we actually had a rotation established, that night it was my sister’s turn to sit in the passenger seat but for some reason as I put little John in his car seat she asked, “Jas, do you want the front seat?” I accepted and she got in the rear passenger seat.  Since it was winter and dark Mom drove, my brother sat in the middle rear seat, and little John’s car seat was behind the driver’s seat.

We passed a car dealership on the way out of town and mom joked “We need to win the lottery so we can get a car the whole family can fit in.”   The first 20 minutes of the drive was uneventful, passing at most a car or two.    I looked at the speedometer, noticed we were going 60 mph and said “Mom you’re speeding.” The police very aggressively enforced the speed limit at night so she slowed back down to 55 mph.

As we neared the county line we approached a hill and I noticed a vehicle coming down it, the first I’d seen in several minutes.   The vehicle was mostly quiet and my middle brother lay asleep in the back seat.   Both vehicles reached the bottom of the hill at the same time and just before we passed each other the other vehicle swerved into our lane.

My stomach dropped as I saw headlights now directly in front of us.  I heard my mom yell “Oh Jesus!” and she swerved hard to the right but it would not be enough, the other vehicle came 8 feet into our lane.

In extremely  stressful situations the human body enters what has come to be known as “Condition Black.”  In this state the body releases massive amounts of hormones and prepares itself to survive.  Heart rate instantly goes to 200 beats per minute or more, blood flow to the surface of the skin and extremities is shut off, even digestion shuts down.   People can suffer tunnel vision, auditory exclusion (you’ll hear some sounds and completely miss others), time distortion (usually time slows down) and even amnesia.

I did not experience condition black and have near perfect recollection of the events of that night.   I am grateful because it allows me to speak about what it is actually like to be hit, in the hopes that others can avoid that experience.

Our combined speed was at least 110 mph, probably far more as it is doubtful the other car having just come down the hill was traveling at the speed limit and the police report would later find the driver made no attempt to brake or evade.  Newton’s first law of motion states “An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion.”   When a moving object hits another object it for it to come to a stop all of it’s momentum must be expended, in the case of vehicles a lot of it is transferred to the occupants.

I was thrown forward against my seat belt and felt it lock, and then begin to stretch.  I knew the seat belt was quite old and wondered if it would hold.   The Renault compressed so much the windshield hit me and exploded, showering us with glass and then my face head bounced off the dash but my seat belt held.   I felt a tremendous amount of energy flowing over me, trying to throw me from the vehicle, at last it ended.

Our vehicle lost the battle and we flipped twice, and rolled 2-3 more times before coming to rest.   No one spoke for a moment, and I considered the very real possibility that if we had been thrown from the road no one would find us for some time because there were no other vehicles to witness the crash.    The tires spinning over my head told me we had come to rest upside down.

I could hear my mom screaming, “Get the baby out!”  I tried to move to get out of the car and realized I couldn’t move more than an inch in any direction.  “I can’t move!” I replied.   Somehow my sister managed to get out of the car, get the baby from the car seat and the next vehicle the passed saw her and stopped, it happened to be our fire chief and his family also returning to Roundup.

I heard someone run to my side of the vehicle.  “Are you OK?”

I hadn’t yet considered if I was injured yet but I realized I was pressed against my seat belt and it was not allowing me to breathe normally.  I remember saying “I can’t breathe”  and I felt an arm reach into the car and saw at my seat belt, finally cutting it.  My body slumped down and I took a breath but it was too late and I lapsed into unconsciousness.

I awoke a few minutes later and the closest thing I can compare it to is waking up at a friends house and not knowing where you are for a moment, I tried to sit up and realized I couldn’t move.   Someone told me there had been an accident and the first question that came to my mind was “Is anyone dead?”

Someone told me everyone was alive and I relaxed, I knew that no matter what so long as all of us lived our family would be OK.  I made a plea to God that if anyone had to die that night to let it be me because I was not afraid and mom was so much more important to our family, my siblings needed her. I could hear my mom talking to someone, her voice oddly came to my left and behind me instead of beside me as I expected.

“Are you OK?” the same voice that had cut my belt asked again.  For the first time I took the time to fully assess my situation.  I knew I couldn’t move and would have to be cut out, I also couldn’t see out of my left eye and figured there was a good chance it was gone.  My nose was bleeding and from the pain I could tell it was fractured and my left cheek was throbbing, also bleeding and one more thing, “I can’t feel my legs” I said.  I’ll never forget his reply of “I’m not surprised.” It was at that moment I knew how bad the crash was.

“I can’t do this again” I heard my mom saying to someone, I could hear fear in her voice but was thankful she didn’t seem to be in pain.  I remember telling her “No one is dead, we will be OK, you can do this.”  I was frustrated and angry that I was so close to her and yet could do nothing to help her except talk to her.

I talked to my mom for about 40 minutes while we waited for emergency vehicles to get on scene. Eventually they started cutting on the car and I could feel the whole side of the car shaking and the sound of metal tearing.  I told them “Just so you know my head is RIGHT there”  and they said “we know.”  I thought it would be quite funny if I survived the crash only to be decapitated by my rescuers!

Eventually they reached in to pull me from the car and knowing I had only a few seconds left I said “Mom, Misty loves you, Jessy loves you, Josh loves you, little John loves you and I love you.” and she replied “I love you” and with that I was pulled from the wreck and almost immediately had a collar on my neck, head taped down and head taped to the board as they were sure I had a spinal injury and I still couldn’t feel my legs.

I knew what would happen next and unsuccessfully protested them cutting my clothes off.  They also started two of the largest IV’s they had, one in each arm.  “They think I’m going into shock!” I thought to myself and realized I was shaking but it was because I had spent the last hour in an unheated car.

I reached up and pried my left eye open, found it swelled shut and pried it open for a second, relieved to find I could still see out of my left eye.   I ran my fingers over my cheek and felt a gash on my left cheek and was unconcerned about my nose, it wasn’t the first time I’d been hit there.

As they started loading me into the ambulance I saw my step dad coming towards me.  He asked me if I was OK and I told him I was fine.   I saw them lifting the limp body of my middle brother through the back window, apparently he was awake but he had no idea who my step dad was, who he was or what had happened.

With that we began the drive to the Billings hospital, the medical people checking my blood pressure and pulse every few minutes and surprised it was 120/60 and less than 60 bpm.   At some point during the ride the feeling in my legs returned.

We arrived at the hospital and they performed what seemed like an endless amount of scans and x-rays.  They couldn’t believe nothing major was broken but they finally let me up off the board and took me to the bathroom to wash as much of the glass out of my head as we could.   “What’s left will come out on it’s own in a few weeks” the nurse told me and led me back to a hospital bed.

At last they rolled me into a room where my sister was sitting on a bed, thankfully she had not been badly hurt.   A nurse came into the room, looked at us and said “Unfortunately your mom and baby brother did not survive the accident.”

I was stunned, the entire ride in I had prayed for everyone to just survive, and as we reached the hospital was overcome with the feeling that I could stop praying because mom had died, I knew she had been badly hurt and it wasn’t a surprise to me but no one had even told me little John had been hurt.

I looked over and saw tears in my sisters eyes and took her hand, the look on her face when she said “Jas, we’re orphans now.” is something I’ll never forget.  We decided we wanted our step dad to adopt us and we lay together for a while, the enormity of the situation finally settling in.

“Jas, he looked like a drug dealer” I remember her saying.  I guess the first guy on scene also grabbed the other driver and put him in his truck with my sister and the baby.  “He said he had a baby about little John’s age.”   I had no words to express both anger and regret that she had been in that situation.

The nurse told me that little John’s car seat had broken and hit him in the head,  causing massive skull fractures and brain damage but he was so young his bones were still soft and there was little visible evidence of the trauma, he just stopped breathing.

The nurse asked us if we wanted to see our mom and we both said “yes.”  She led us into a dark room where mom lay, still hooked to machines.  They had air lifted her to the hospital but she had suffered severe internal injuries and died in surgery.   I was numb and had no real reaction to the sight and after a minute we left.

We were re-united with our step dad who told us our brother had to stay the night because he had a concussion and they wanted to observe him, he was the only one who was not released that night.

Aftermath:

To come soon

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