Spring Break Adventure #1

The kids spring break started with a bang, literally. We had just arrived at a friend's house (the Lemmons) near Heppner, Oregon (aka: the middle of nowhere). It was around 1:00 in the afternoon and the kids were out on the swing set stretching their legs from the drive when an old pickup truck came barreling down this highway which happens to be right in front of their house. The truck went off the far side of the road, flying up in the air, and then nose dove into the edge of a culvert, bounced once more before landing on all 4 tires right side up. The kids came running into the house (the adults were inside when this happened, but heard the crash) and Zach starts saying, "Mom, did you see how high that truck was in the air? That was so cool." He thought someone was racing and trying to do tricks. I told him someone just wrecked and the kids were stunned.

They came inside while Alaina and I went over to check on the driver while Cherisse called 911. The driver was an older guy and was thrown towards the passenger side of the truck, but his leg was trapped under the broken steering column. He hadn't been wearing a seatbelt (the truck might not have had any), and when his body went from 60 mph (with the truck) to a dead stop when the truck hit the edge of the hill, his body broke the steering column. Alaina was able to lift the steering column off his leg and his body collapsed against the passenger side. We opened the passenger side to try to help him, but he couldn't hold his body up and was falling out (the truck was sitting at an angle with the passenger side lower to the ground so gravity wasn't helping here). We held him in the truck for a bit and tried to put a towel on his face which was cut up pretty badly. He was spewing up bloody stuff and it was apparent he had major internal injuries. Did I mention this happened in the middle of nowhere? Finally someone drove by, a sheep farmer with an Australian accent. He pulled off the road and asked if he could help. We asked him to hold the guy in the truck. He did until the ambulance arrived and they took the guy to a hospital over an hour away. The tow truck came and retrieved the truck.

The officer on the scene came over to Alaina's house to get a police report. He looked to us adults and asked, "who saw the accident happen." My three kids raised their hands. Yep, they were the only witnesses to this accident. He asked them each to give their account of the accident and wrote everything down on a notepad smiling ever so slightly at their explanations. They each started their report with, "Well, I was swinging on the swings when all of the sudden I heard a rattling noise." They explained how they saw this truck coming faster and faster down the road and then hit the guard rail and fly up in the air and then land back down and stuff came flying off the truck. From their angle it looked like the truck hit the guard rails, but it actually went off the road just 2 feet before the guard rail started, but did fly through the air because of the momentum it picked up and then launched off the embankment. The officer said the victim was pretty confused and kept asking if he had been in an accident. When Alaina and I first got to the scene the guy told us that he thought he fell asleep. The officer asked the kids a few other questions like if there were any other cars around, and which direction the truck was coming from. The kids were very detailed in their account with the officer. They won't be forgetting this trip any time soon and it's only the first day of spring break.

This is the view from Alaina's front porch to the guard rails where the truck went off on the opposite side of the road.

This isn't the truck that crashed (it was a pick up truck), but it just shows where the truck was when it went off the road and how close the accident was to where the kids were playing out there.

Here the kids are on the other side of the highway at the site of the accident. You can see the tire marks to the right. This is where the truck landed. Shaylin is standing right in front of where we were holding the guy in his truck. Behind them you can kind of see the culvert the truck jumped over.

This is the officer with the kids after getting the police report and giving the kids little deputy stickers.

Who knew that out in the middle of nowhere (aka: Heppner Oregon), it could be so adventurous?