Fatal Accidents

I have driven past accident scenes where bodies were under blankets or trapped in the wreckage near the highway. The only fatality I actually witnessed while it happened occurred at Hartford Speedway in 1996. The champion of the Interstate Racing Association (Wisconsin) was killed. He planned to make this his last race before retiring unless he finished first or second in this race and advanced to the World of Outlaws feature race of the evening.

 

I was out on a ride for a site I help run. It is devoted to sport bikes and we run a pretty good "sporting" pace and stress that no one gets left behind so there is no need to keep up. I was in front of a guy that didn't listen. He blew past me on a country road (I was doing between 115 and 125 mph) and I watched him misjudge a corner and go head on into an old Camaro. Not pretty. Dead on contact.

 

When I was about 8, didn't actually see the accident happen, but we got to the intersection just after it happened. The cops arrived right behind us. A pair of logging trucks were running together. The direction they were travelling included a low hill just before the stop lights, and the brakes on the truck in back failed (don't remember the particulars from that many years ago). The guy had a choice of swerving right and taking out a car full of people, swerving to the left and doing the same thing, or rearending the guy he was running with. He chose option 3, which cost him his life.

That made a pretty big impression on an 8 year-old, especially since a last minute trip to the potty delayed us by enough to make us miss being at or in the intersection when the accident happened. That intersection was only about 2 miles from home too.

 

January 1, 2005. Last westbound rest area for I-40 in Arizona before California. Parked down by the get on ramp because everything was full. On the way back, just as I reached the truck I heard a vehicle on the highway hitting the warning bumps. Turned and looked and watched the vehicle start to flip end over end at over 75 mph. Flipped three times.

Jumped the fence and was the second person on scene. One had called 911. The first person told me I didn't need to help. Advised him I was a paramedic and had to. Went to both people in the vehicle. There was no sign of life. Obvious death. Took control of scene and had people start looking to see if anyone flew out of car.

I called 911 and advised them they were deceased.

When police arrived, I had to fill paperwork out concerning the accident and the pronoucement. Had to give them my paramedic license number.

These people had fell asleep at never woke up.

Stayed with me a while. Called a friend who ran the ambulance where I had been working at and discussed it.

 

About three years ago was coming down Highway 14 into Winona MN after a road trip out of town. Came down the hill to see a bottom hopper tractor trailer hanging over the edge of the road ahead of us. Went passed it and saw a car burried under the nose of the tractor in the ditch. Turns out the semi was gaining speed to go up the hill out of town, and the guy who was in my graduation class driving a car pulled outta a intersection right there. Didnt see the truck and obviously the truck tried to swerve but the car wrapped around the front and took it off a 20 foot embankment and landed with the car under the front. Bad bad accident and he was dead upon impact.


Here's the paper report explains it a little better then I can

A 21-year-old Winona man died Tuesday morning after a semi-trailer broadsided his car as he pulled out onto U.S. Highway 14 from the Knopp Valley subdivision in Winona.

John David Thrune of Pleasant Hill Drive was wearing a seat belt in his 1993 Chevrolet Corsica at 9 a.m. when a westbound 1996 blue Ford semi truck and trailer driven by Daren Michael Kaster struck the Corsica on the driver's side, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
The truck veered to the left and pushed the car across the highway and down a steep embankment, pinning it to the ground in a residential yard on Gilmore Valley Road (Winona County Road 21).

Thrune was dead at the scene, the state patrol said.

Kaster, 32, of rural Spring Valley, Minn., was not injured.

Police, deputies and state troopers redirected traffic to make way for emergency vehicles and traffic investigators.

 

If you'r watching it unfold in front of your eyes, it is indeed in slow motion. The personal involvement of a persons last moments never leaves you, only comes into thought less often over the years. To see the bright pink foam pour out of the nostrels and mouth of someone that has crushed their chest into their steering wheel, and hear the raspy gasping lessen till you hear the final sigh on their last exhale, will never leave you. I once encounterd a roll over that had just occured, I thought it was a basketball in the gutter.

 

I have dealt with the loss of patients in the ambulance before with many of the things you describe.

But you are right, the accident I saw was like in slow motion and quiet. Then the bangs as the car hit each time.

 

In the late 80's, I was working at a Jiffy Lube type place, down in the pit because I was too young to actually be working there. The intersection 50 feet away from the front door was at the bottom of a hill with a 4 way stoplight. We all heard skidding and an awful crash one day. Other then the ones involved in the accident, me and 2 of my co-workers were the first on scene. A 4x4 had lost control and hit a compact car in the intersection. Both vehicles were on their side and the car was pinned against the curb by the truck. There were 2 kids and 1 adult male in the car. The car was crushed. We had to slide the truck down the hill to get to the car. We were able to get the kids out of the car but they were messed up. One boy and one girl, the looked to be about 4 and 5. The little girl's head was sliced open and I was trying to stop the bleeding while waiting for the ambulance to get there. She was breathing but I was worried about how much blood she was losing. The boy seemed to be OK but was scared. The father, was rather obese and was pinned in the car. My buddies were trying to get him out of the car. We were worried about fire since both vehicles were leaking gasoline. The father passed away before the paramedics were able to get him out of the car. I found out later that the girl had passed away in the hospital later that night. That one accident stuck with me even more than losing fellow soldiers in combat.