The Worst Day

 In the early 90s, I was a patrolman on the south end of Caddo Parish, on day shift. We changed shifts every four months, and it was early in the rotation. After 8 months on evenings and midnights, day shift was a welcome respite. A normal day started quiet and got increasingly busy until it was often hard to get off by 1:30 pm, but it was still better than the bedlam of evenings and midnights. Patrolmen on day shift go to lunch as early as possible to avoid being interrupted. One beautiful Friday in late spring, I got through lunch with no problem, and it looked like it would be quiet all day. The sky was blue and the sunshine warm, but with less than an hour to go, things changed. The radio blared,  “Signal 53, Highway 171 at Bledsoe Road.”  

I was ten miles away and drove up from the south past Keithville School. Bison Tractor was on the corner of the intersection of Bledsoe Road and 171. Across the street was a church. Bledsoe dead ends into LA 171, a divided highway with a median. When I pulled up, Fire District 6 was already there. In the middle of the intersection was a four door sedan with all four doors standing open. The car had been been struck on the driver’s side with great impact and spun around backward. The back glass was shattered, and a baby seat was hanging half way out of it. Behind the car, two firemen were doing CPR on an infant.

As soon as I got out of my car, Deputy Robert Brown walked up. Robert and I went to the Academy together in 1988, and we worked at the jail until I went to patrol. That day, he was was watching a crew of inmates pick up garbage nearby when the crash occurred. He pointed to a burgundy pick up truck with heavy front end damage, one hundred yards south of the crash scene. It looked like the truck was south bound on 171 when it T-boned the car as it crossed over from Bledsoe Road.

“It’s bad Mick. The car pulled out in front of the truck. It was full of women and a baby. The baby was half way out the back window when I got here. The woman in the back passenger seat is gone. The one in the ambulance is bad. Don’t know about the young woman the paramedics are working on. Helicopter is on the way.”

Robert went up the highway on the southbound side to reroute the traffic which was building up rapidly. A crowd of over fifty people gathered on the corner. They were quiet and orderly. Some were crying, some were watching, and some were talking. I noticed Mike Stowell, pastor of First Baptist in Keithville, standing with a group and praying.

Deputy Jacob Johnson (not his real name) was on scene when I arrived. I asked him what he needed. He didn’t respond.

“Jacob, call Dispatch and get two no preference wreckers headed this way and run the plate on that car. Start getting names of victims and figure out who was behind the wheel. We got to clean this mess up before there’s another crash. I’ll start getting measurements.”

The bad crashes I worked in the past occurred at night, during bad weather, or involved alcohol, but this crash was different. It was broad daylight, the weather was perfect, and alcohol was not a factor.

Ignoring the carnage and chaos, I did a rough sketch of the scene, found the point of impact, and measured it against the car and two telephone poles with a measuring wheel. Jacob was getting information about the car, and the women inside. The pick up that struck the car was on the shoulder fifty yards south of the crash scene. The truck had two 55 gallon drums full of oil in the bed. 

“Jacob…who was driving the truck?”

He didn’t answer.

By now the Coroner was on the scene. Two of the victims were being flown to the hospital in a helicopter. The crowd on the side of the road was growing. 

I approached the crowd, cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “Can anyone tell me who was driving the truck over there?”

After a minute, a man in tears approached me.

“Are you alright?” 

He nodded.

“Can I see your driver’s license?” 

He reached for his wallet, then handed me his driver’s license. I started writing down his information.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Well…I drove up and saw the gray car in the road…”

I stopped writing and looked up at him. He had his head in his hands and was crying. 

“You mean you weren’t driving that truck over there?”

“Oh no.”

I handed him his driver’s license and told him to go home. I yelled to the crowd again. After a minute, a woman approached me. She pointed at a young man who was standing alone, kicking rocks on the shoulder of the road. She nodded her head to indicate he was the driver.

I approached a young man of eighteen. 

“Hey man…you alright?” 

He didn’t answer or look up, but he looked fine. 

“Can you tell me what happened?”

He was delivering two drums of oil to a business south of Mansfield. He said the gray car pulled out in front of him, and he couldn’t stop. I asked him if he had anything to drink in the last 24 hours. He said no. I checked his eyes to be sure. They were clear. I put him in the back of my car to get him away from the crowd and give him a place to rest.

I looked across the intersection and saw a white house across from Bledsoe Road. Though it is plain to see, it is easy to miss with the angle of the road and the trees around it. There was a man standing on the porch watching the scene in front of him. I walked over and talked to Mr Bison who was in his eighties. Mr Bison was eating lunch on his porch when the crash occurred. He saw it take place. He said the gray car was on Bledsoe Road and failed to stop at the stop sign. It went through the intersection in front of the pickup, and the truck could not avoid hitting it. 

 I finished up at the scene, went back to my car, and spoke to the pickup truck driver.

“Hey listen, you’re telling me the truth…no alcohol, drugs, or medicine right?”

“Right.”

“Then I’m fixing to do you a big favor. What’s your boss’ number?”

I called his boss and told him to meet me at the hospital. I did not believe the young man was on drugs or alcohol, and there was no state requirement to draw blood back then, but it was in his best interest to definitively prove he wasn’t under the influence when four people were killed. We met his boss at the hospital, and I left him there.

I returned to the crash scene. Four people, a young woman, her baby, her grandmother, and a friend were all killed in the crash, and the gravity of knowing they were alive two hours earlier was heavy. I sat in my car at the scene doing paperwork while the wrecker drivers made the final clean up. A car pulled up behind me and honked. I stepped out of my car to a man running toward me. It was the young woman’s husband and father of the baby. He asked me what happened. I broke the news to him. He collapsed in the road and wept. Later, I found out his wife was pregnant when she died.

Months later, a local attorney called me. He was representing the company who owned the truck with the oil drums in the back and the young man who was driving. He asked me about our crash investigation and thanked me for having the young man’s blood drawn. He told me the young man was fine physically, but the crash took an emotional toll on him.

Five years later, I was subpoenaed to testify in a civil trial on the crash. I was on the stand most of the afternoon. When the trial was over, I spoke to the attorney. He told me the young driver of the pickup was found not at fault. The driver survived a horrible crash that killed five people and then spent five years wondering if he would survive the legal implications, but finally, it was over. He made it through, and yet the crash altered his life forever.

My career as a Deputy Sheriff lasted 34 years. I worked burglaries, robberies, child molestations, and murder cases, but I had my worst day on a quiet, sunny day in May…