ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) - A car crash took the lives of two Roseburg residents on Sunday, but the accident could have been far worse had it not been for the efforts of good Samaritans who happened to be floating by. A man, a 3-year-old boy and a dog were pulled out of the riverside wreck, thanks in part to a pre-bachelor party rafting trip.
Jared Murray, 22, remains in critical condition Tuesday after the car he was a passenger in veered off of Highway 138 east near Steamboat Creek.
Murray, of Roseburg, was in the backseat when Christopher L. Brady, 25, drove off the road and went downhill, crashing into trees on a steep embankment near the North Umpqua River. Brady and his front passenger, Candace M. Beer-Nixon, 34, both of Roseburg, died at the scene.
Brady’s 3-year-old son and Murray were pulled from the wreckage, along with a dog that was in the vehicle. Murray was transported by air ambulance to Sacred Heart Hospital at RiverBend in Springfield, while the 3-year-old was taken to Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg.
Beer-Nixon, a medical technician at Douglas Resident Training Facilities, leaves behind a husband and four daughters.
Relatives of Brady could not be reached for comment.
The crash could have been deadlier had it not been for an afternoon rafting trip.
Ian Farquhar took a group of four men out on a rafting trip that morning as part of the group’s pre-bachelor party festivities. By Farquhar’s account, the day had gone smoothly, though he was being cautious since it was the first trip he had guided this season.
At about 1:30 p.m., the raft had just been spit out of a Class IV rapid when one of the men pointed out the white Honda Accord, about 15 feet from the river, crumpled against the trees.
The scene was so jarring, one of the men asked guide Farquhar if it was intentional - a prop.
“I guess he was just making sure everyone was seeing what he was seeing,” Farquhar said.
Law enforcement officers are unsure how long the car had been in that position. State troopers said the accident could have occurred Saturday night when the group was heading back from a fishing trip. But the car never made it home and instead plunged over the embankment near Milepost 41.
When the men realized what they were looking at, they paddled quickly to the shore and arrived about 50 to 100 feet downstream from the wreckage. Farquhar said he grabbed a first-aid kit, safety goggles and nitrile gloves, then began yelling toward the heap.
“You could hear somebody screaming,” Farquhar said. “I got a pretty instantaneous response.”
Farquhar said Murray had been drifting in and out of consciousness. Farquhar, 36, was prepared for the grisly scene. The Bend-native had been a guide, trained in emergency care, for nearly 20 years. At 16, Farquhar became a Mt. Bachelor Junior Ski Patroller, then joined the National Outdoor Leadership School in his college years. Though he is a web designer, Farquhar considers guiding his real job.
“This has been my day job for 15 years of my life,” he said.
When Farquhar first peered into the car, he only saw catastrophe. The car’s roof and doors were caved in, and Murray kept repeating “Where’s the boy? Where’s the dog?”
That’s when Farquhar noticed Brady’s 3-year-old son standing on his car seat, sobbing, but mostly unscathed.
“I look at this scene, what it looks like, then there’s this toddler,” Farquhar said. “I have a really close friend with a toddler about the same age, I thought that could be a toddler I know.”
After he fetched a jacket from one of the men and used it to line a broken backseat window, Farquhar pulled the boy out. The men formed a line on the bank and passed the boy upward to the road. Soon after, Farquhar said he broke the passenger window to retrieve the dog and repeat the process.
Murray, however, was still pinned. There wasn’t much to be done about the metal, but the body of Brady was crushing his torso and needed to be moved, he said.
“It was obvious he was in a lot of pain,” Farquhar said. “… he had a strong heartbeat and labored breathing, but it was clear he had been there a long time.”
There were concerns about whether freeing Murray might cause problems. Wreckage can sometimes be a tourniquet for unseen injuries. Calculating the risk, Farquhar and a passer-by who had been flagged down by the men decided to try to move Brady off of Murray. They looped a flip line, which is a webbing normally used to flip overturned rafts, around Brady. Standing outside the driver’s side window, they pulled until the body slid off.
“At this point, we waited for the paramedics to arrive. (Murray) was pinned by multiple parts of the vehicle,” Farquhar said.
Emergency responders soon arrived and provided Murray with an oxygen tank. By the time another ambulance arrived, the emergency responders were able to give Murray an IV and monitored his vitals, Farquhar said. Then they began to cut the car apart, which was a delicate operation considering the steep embankment.
Murray was taken to a hospital via helicopter while the 3-year-old was taken away in an ambulance. Though Murray remains in critical condition, his chances of survival are vastly improved because the rafters floated into the scene. Farquhar, however, said he believed that, considering how busy the day would be on the river, someone would have seen the wreck eventually.
“They may have been seen within the next few hours because there was likely going to be other boat traffic that day,” Farquhar said. “But if there wasn’t a riverside rescue they would have died for sure. There’s no way someone would have seen them from the street.”
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Information from: The News-Review, https://www.nrtoday.com
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