With the changes in speed limits and the deterioration of 4th Street Road from Hutchinson to Stafford County, I found trips home went better by taking K-96 to U.S. 50 nearly to St. John, then U.S. 281 north to K-19 into Larned.
And that's just what I did a couple of Fridays ago, on my way to a few days at the farm and Rozel's 125th anniversary celebration. I noticed the sedan at the stop sign, but didn't think much of it as I closed in on the corner and prepared to turn. Surely they knew better than to come north through the intersection with U.S. 50 until I had finished my turn.
I was wrong.
The sedan pulled out from the stop sign, surprising me. I stood on my brakes to come to a stop, fearing he would hit me if I made the turn.
He never got that far. A truck pulling a trailer slammed nearly full speed into the front passenger door of the sedan, sending it flying into the northwest ditch.
There was a woman in the passenger seat. I found out later her name is Em.
"I could see the look on her face just before we hit them," the wife of the truck driver told me as we watched emergency crews using the Jaws of Life to cut open the passenger door. I had pulled off to the side of the road after turning onto U.S. 281.
"Are you calling 911?" I asked another driver who had also witnessed the collision.
"Yes! Yes I have!" she answered, her voice shaky.
There was nothing the truck driver could have done to avoid the collision. I waited for traffic to part and walked over to the sedan to see what, if anything, I could do for them. Another man had the same idea. Em hadn't been wearing her seat belt, and she was thrown sideways - pinned between the steering column and the driver's legs.
He sat behind the wheel in shock, unsure what to do. The other man who approached the car with me pried open the driver's door and gently tugged him out, hoping it would free up enough room for Em to get out. But she was still pinned.
The car was hissing, the odor of antifreeze strong. I watched for sparks and sniffed for the odor of leaking fuel, praying a fire wouldn't start. Explosions after car crashes are actually pretty rare, but a fire with Em trapped in the car would have grim consequences.
I walked over to the truck when I saw the wife of the driver climb out of the cab.
"Are you OK?" I asked her. "Is anyone in your truck hurt?"
"No, we're fine," she said, obviously shaken, staring at the sedan.
We watched as law enforcement officers arrived and immediately tried to render aid.
"I could see the expression on her face just before we hit," the truck driver's wife said sadly.
Surprise. Fear. Helplessness.
As I returned to the sedan, I noticed Em kept trying to rise up from under the steering wheel.
"No, no," the law enforcement officer next to her said. "Stay down. Stay down."
He didn't want her to further injure herself trying to pull herself free.
The driver, a 30-year-old man I later learned was likely her son, was placed on a stretcher and taken to the first ambulance. He seemed shaken, but - remarkably - not seriously hurt.
Efforts to free Em through the driver's side were proving useless, so the Jaws of Life was brought out.Within minutes, the ambulance crew told the law enforcement officers to notify Wichita and have a medical helicopter launched. She was in bad shape, and needed to get to Wichita quickly. They would meet the helicopter in Stafford.
I gave my witness statement to a St. John police officer, and they told me a sheriff's deputy would be in touch if they needed more information. Em's wails of agony as they wheeled her to the second ambulance on a gurney cut through the muggy summer afternoon.
I had feared the worst when I saw the collision and realized there was a passenger where the truck hit. Her cries were a bit of good news to me, actually, because I knew she was still alive.
The day after I returned to Wichita, I learned from the Kansas Highway Patrol that Em was at St. Francis. A hospital spokeswoman told me she was still alive, but in critical condition. I could tell her recovery was not a foregone conclusion --- but at least she was still fighting for life.
They had been on just another drive, on just another summer day...until that fateful Friday moment.
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