Mom and Brother,
Well, we finally just made it home, but not without a great deal of drama. The short of it is that we are all here, we are all safe. But, we actually saw a person die tonight.
As we went past Deer Creek, a couple of motorcycles whipped past us at way beyond high speed, gripping the curving highway leaning their motorbikes at 45 degrees or more. They weaved their way around cars and disappeared around the bend that leads up the big climb through where the roads get limited down to a single lane. As we made our way through that area, with any trace of daylight now fully evaporating, we noticed a third motorcycle cut right around us just as the left lane got pinched into the right. We all got in line to make our way through this section when I saw the other two waiting on the right, clearly looking for their other member of their group. He revved to let them know he caught up and then once the lanes opened up, all three bolted off around the bend of Mt. Ord and into the darkness.
We began the descent past the Sycamore Creek turnoff when I noticed what looked like a red flare against the median and quickly realized it was one of the bikes, so I started scanning the road for a body. Vicki, who did an amazing job driving through this incident, saw the body stretched across the left lane and dodged around it as I saw a second bike on the ground on the right shoulder. Cars began pulling over with people jumping out and heading up the hill to see if the could find the bodies and, more importantly, signal to the other cars streaking down the mountain to slow down. Vicki, among several others, was on the phone to 911 letting them know of the incident. We could hear the body in the highway get run over several times and by the time we got to it, it was hardly human any longer. One man dragged it out of the highway while a few of us looked among the roadside for any sign of another person. The cars screaming around that downhill bend and starting to stack up where we all pulled over were absolutely terrifying. The other motorcyclist whose bike was in the shoulder finally came walking back down the hill, clearly beyond shock but uninjured. He was joined by the third rider who made his way back up along the shoulder to find this devastation. It was amazing to see these young men high on thrill become so instantly mortified and broken, but their carelessness brought this upon themselves.
It took well over 20 minutes for the first emergency respondent to show up. I returned to the car to be with the kids. Vicki finally made her way back to us 10 minutes later. Amazingly, no other accidents occurred. Vicki said that one of the men who was up the road with her remarked to his wife just moments before the incident, "I wonder how long before one of them gets scraped off the road." Little did he or any of us know.
As we were leaving Pine, we did come back across that heard of Elk, making their way down Bradshaw to the meadow. I half joked to the kids once I got back to the car on the side of the road after the accident that those elk knew something and were trying to keep us from getting on the road tonight. The entire incident still haunts me, even as I sit here in my bed now. Yet I also thought of the 10-15 cars of people who immediately and instinctively pulled over to assist in whatever way we could. In a span of a few moments we saw how stupid, foolish and selfish a few people can be while so many more are so good, so decent.
It was a hard remainder of a ride home, but here we are. We even stopped at Target to get Lucas a few supplies for his first day (he is grinning ear to ear in anticipation for tomorrow) and some yogurt so we could have a sweet taste touch our tongue before truly calling it a night.
Thank you for a wonderful yet quick weekend. I love you both. Be careful out there.
Love,
Jason
Here is the report from the Payson Roundup on the accident.
