03/31/2025
A lady that was in last Fridays 70 + car pileup on I70 in Kansas during the dust storm made a list of things to do in this situation that make a lot of sense to me..
Maybe they will be helpful to someone..
Her name is Patty..
“Now that the dust has literally settled and we are a few days out from our near-fatal accident last Friday, I wanted to reflect upon some of the things we learned during our horrific experience. As we were in this crisis, many things flashed through my mind, including practical tidbits that I remembered from others in similar situations that ultimately helped save our lives and helped us recover afterwards. So maybe some of these tidbits will help some of you one day.
Here are some lessons learned:
1) Our First Responders (such as Trooper Tod KHP Hays, Kansas) are the true heroes of any situation like this. They literally run into danger and help those who are in need during the most horrific situations. They see gruesome horrors that we cannot imagine. We saw so many heroic acts on that highway last Friday, and we cannot thank the First Responders enough. In an emergency, stay out of their way, and do exactly what they say. They are there to save your life.
2) Zero visibility on ANY road, at any speed, is a recipe for death. We did not understand the nature of dust storms (we don't live in this area where they are common), but we do understand blizzards and fog. They are all the same, and the common denominator is ZERO VISIBILITY - blizzards, fog, dust storms, heavy rain, tornados, hurricanes, etc. And while these events can often be predicted ahead of time, you truly have no idea when you will find yourself in an event like this. We went from total sunshine to total dust blackout in less than 10 seconds. But if you encounter something like this, the best course of action is to slow down (NOT STOP), get into the GRASS (median or side of the road) as far away from the road as you can get, and stop when it's safe. You should be in the grass, not on the shoulder!! If you stop in the road or on the shoulder, you will be rammed from behind as others cannot see you.
3) Seatbelts save lives. Goes without saying, but NEVER take your seatbelt off when you are on a highway. Even for a second to find something in the back seat or deal with a child, etc. In that one second you could end up in a crash. Our seatbelts and our airbags saved our lives. And of course - no phones or texting. If Bob had had his eyes on his phone for that one second when the semis appeared out of the dust, we would have hit them dead on and died instantly.
4) Only YOU can make the best decision for you in any emergency. If you are in a multi-car vehicle accident, the common wisdom is that you should stay in your car. Once you are out of your car and wandering around in the median or on the side of the road, you become an unprotected object for other cars that are crashing around you. Your car has airbags and is meant to protect you in a crash. HOWEVER, in our case, our lives were saved because we DID make the decision to get out of our car (the police later confirmed this with us afterwards once they saw our car). We got out because we had been hit from behind four times, and we knew if we hadn't exited the vehicle, the next hits could/would be fatal. It was a split-second decision to exit the car, but in the end it was the right one.
5) iPhones know more than we do. My iPhone somehow knew that we had been in accident (45 MPH to Zero in 1.5 seconds... that's how). So it called 911 for us (amazing!). BUT, it also sent an emergency text message to my emergency contacts, who were Bob and my two kids. Sounds great in theory, but my two adult children got an emergency text saying that I was in a car accident at the pinned location (it sent a map with a pin), but my kids did not know for many, many long minutes if we were alive or dead. Great that they knew we'd been in an accident, but it was an awful, long wait for them until we were able to call and let them know we were OK.
6) Keep your pet on a leash in a car. If you are traveling with a pet, I now recommend that you keep the leash on them in the vehicle. As I shoved Ginger to Bob to save her as he was exiting the car, I knew that she would likely run as soon as she could wriggle free from his arms, which is exactly what she did (I had a flashback of remembering a scenario like this from a friend (Sarah Blessing) who had been in a similar situation years ago). So I spent precious seconds digging in the backseat to grab her leash so that I could bring it with me when I was getting out of the car. Those seconds mattered, and we were hit again before I could get out. But in the end, Ginger's leash saved her life because once I got to her, we could restrain her during an extremely stressful situation for a dog. We had just lost our other dog Snickers in January, and I would have been inconsolable if we had lost Ginger too.
7) Sometimes it’s smart to take things with you when you go. We all know the airplane wisdom of "don't take anything with you when you are exiting a plane in an emergency." I will be honest that this wisdom did NOT go through my head at all when I was trying to get out of the car. Here's what I was thinking instead (likely this was "mom mode" kicking in):
"Where is my purse? I need Ginger's leash! Where are my glasses? (I had just settled back to take a nap before all this happened). Where is my phone? I need a jacket because we are going to be out in the cold!" So even though seconds mattered, I grabbed my purse and my glasses, and I found Ginger's leash right away. I couldn't find my phone (it had fallen into the well at my feet in the passenger seat during the impact), but I did see Bob's phone on the console so I grabbed that. I couldn't find my jacket so I gave up on that. So I crawled out of the car with my purse, Bob's phone, Ginger's leash, and my glasses. All of that cost seconds, and I did get hit again as I was finally crawling out of the car, but here's why I'm glad I grabbed all those things:
8.).. A phone is now a life essential – Part 1. Like it or not, your phone is now your lifeline to the outside world. How many of you know the phone numbers of your family and friends by heart? (This isn't the 1970s anymore). Thank GOD I was able to escape with Bob's phone, because for three days that was the only lifeline we had. And because both my phone AND my computer were lost in the accident, I could only communicate with those who Bob also had in his contacts list. We were able to find people by doing the 6 degrees of separation from him, but it was arduous, and many people that I care deeply about did not hear from me for many days.
9) A phone is now a life essential – Part 2. If you lose your phone, you lose your ability to operate most of the daily business you do. Banking. Email. Social media. Bill payments. Insurance Company (to report the accident!). Etc. etc. And guess what? Even if you have access to another computer and think you’re going to just hop online and log in to all those things, you need two-factor authentication on your PHONE before they will let you in! So for three long days, I had no access to any of these items. Even our insurance company (USAA) (who has always been great at customer service) could not verify my account when I called them Friday night to report the accident -- because they could not send a two-factor authentication to my phone. WHAT? So the only remedy I can see for this is to make sure you have a backup person listed on all your accounts with their email and phone.
10) Your wallet is essential. Credit and debit cards and an insurance card become your tickets to getting all the basics covered when you are stranded. Thankfully Bob had his wallet on him, and I thought enough to grab my purse on the way out. We were lucky to have access to our money. Others didn't.
11). If you are in a mass accident, book a hotel as soon as possible. We were stranded in rural Kansas, and as soon as our car was totaled, we became refugees with no transportation. And so did 100 other people who were also in the accident, as well as those who had gotten stranded on the highway once it was closed. My quick-thinking daughter, Samantha Schmitz, had sprung into action shortly after she learned we were ok and booked us a hotel room in the nearest tiny town. If she hadn’t, we’d have had no place to stay for the next three days while we unraveled our lives.
12). WalMart is a lifesaver in a crisis. If you are going to end up stranded in rural America, you can buy anything you need to live at WalMart. After we got back to our hotel, it became apparent that we had NOTHING but the clothes on our backs and our dog. So a wonderful Good Samaritan offered to drive us to WalMart, where we bought basic items like food, water, toiletries, underwear, comfy sweats, etc. You never realize all the things you use on a daily basis until your entire life is stripped away.
13) People are good. Truly, they are. The entire community of KS reached out to us on Facebook to offer anything we needed. People gave us rides and offered to help get us the basics once we had no car and no possessions (Nancy Hendricks). Friends from far away (Mosie Potts Himes) offered to fly into Denver and drive us home, knowing it would be emotionally hard for us to get back on a highway to get to Ohio. Work colleagues (David Buddy Sparks-Lee, Stephanie Kathryn Bohnakm Hilda Jumps, Anne Vannoy Wadian) jumped into action to take over work responsibilities to we could focus on caring for ourselves and recovering from this horrific event. We have been so blessed at every turn, and it gave us renewed hope in humanity during some dark times in our country. Sometimes it is hard to accept help, but people truly are good, and they WANT to help. So let them.
That’s all for tonight. This has been a very eye-opening five days, and it is not lost on me that I will probably never be the same after this event. Bob and I should have lost our lives multiple times in that crash, but we didn’t. Why? We don’t know, but we sure are grateful. Still, there is survivor guilt. Why were we saved, while now more than a dozen people weren’t? (A college kid on spring break... a family in a minivan...two construction workers from the local town... it's awful to think about it). All I want to do is to continue to make sure my life has meaning in a way that honors others.
So thank you for letting me do what I do best – express my feelings through writing. Good night.”
