# Harvest of sorrow...



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Well I just got home from Indiana and helping with the corn/bean harvest on Wednesday night. Things actually went pretty well-- no major breakdowns when I was there, just the usual hiccups with balky equipment that crops up from time to time. I was actually pretty late getting up there, as harvest started unusually early again this year (they were done with beans by the time I got up there last year and just starting corn; this year it was more hit-n-miss a lot of swapping back and forth between beans and corn as rain showers messed with things but it stayed pretty good weather for harvest overall...) My SIL flew down while we were west of San Antonio on the Frio River for our annual "mini-vacation" in a rental cabin and 3 day weekend of swimming and tubing and stuff on the river, and she stayed with us most of the following week after we returned home, so instead of me heading out around the first of October for Indiana it was more like the 7th, first Thursday, whatever date that was. She rode back to Indiana with me in the pickup, as I always drive up. They were hip deep in beans by then and going strong. It was actually a pretty good year for the crops-- beans were lackluster to average, for the most part, but the corn yields were some of the best the BIL has ever had. The sandy high ground suffered a lot from late July heat and lack of rain, but the low ground more than made up for it for the most part.

So, why was it a "harvest of sorrow"? Well, shortly after we had returned back to their home, my sister-in-law was back at work, and told us a story from one of her co-workers she'd heard after not having talked to her for about a week and a half or so... Apparently, shortly before she left (but after she was not scheduled any more on that part time job-- she works two part-time jobs) her co-worker's neighbor lady suffered a horrific accident. Apparently, she and her brother-in-law were getting started with harvest. She was running the tractor and auger cart, he was running the combine, breaking open a field of corn. She had her small dog riding with her in the tractor, and apparently as he was picking corn opening the field, either she or the dog needed to pee or the dog got loose or something. Anyway, she wandered out into the standing corn, either for privacy to do her business or trying to fetch the dog, figuring that her brother-in-law in the combine would simply "make the circle" around the field, as that's how he *usually* opened up a field-- do the outside round or two, then pick off the end rows, then start picking back and forth. This time, for whatever reason, he decided to simply double back on the next pass unexpectedly, and it was said she had her earbuds or earphones on listening to music and didn't hear the combine returning. In the early-season still-standing-strong corn, he didn't see her in the field until it was too late. She was pulled into the cornhead and lost an arm and a leg up to the shoulder and hip before he could get the machine stopped. He climbed down and when he saw how grievously wounded she was, he passed out. Her husband was apparently working in the shop nearby and heard the scream, and came running-- when he saw her he started throwing up. The neighbor lady, my SIL's co-worker, also heard the commotion and ran over, and held her hand and comforted her until the police and EMS arrived to take care of her; her husband had recovered his senses and was restraining the dog as the police and EMS tended to her and questioned his brother. It was touch-n-go for the first 24 hours; doctors were unsure she'd survive, but she did, and after several weeks in the hospital has returned home. The story of her recovery and outlook was in the local paper-- I'll attach a picture I took of the newspaper at the end of this post. She's actually in pretty good spirits considering what happened... She's 58 and looking at having to start life all over again, but she's really got a great attitude and a lot of faith. Her BIL was understandably quite upset and has been terribly pained by what happened as well.

The saddest thing of all happened Tuesday morning as I was getting ready to start heading south. My wife's best friend from college, who lives just north of Nashville, has been wanting some goats for her son Billy, who's a few months older than my daughter Keira, who's 13, and so she and my wife arranged with her sister to buy a couple of her Boer females from the kids that were born last January. She and I ran them up to the vet last Friday and got their "papers" certified that they were healthy to be transported across state lines, and I delayed my departure until Tuesday, since that's when Betty's friend was off work, so I could deliver the goats to her without being in a specific "time crunch" trying to catch up to her after work or before after-school stuff for her son or whatever. I slept in til about 7 and got up and did my "morning constitutional" in the bathroom (the "three S's"... sh!t, shower, and shave) and came out to a pancake breakfast my BIL prepared for my departure as a "thank you"... As we finished eating, we heard a report on the TV in the living room that 3 school children had been killed near Rochester, struck by a pickup as they crossed the road to catch their school bus. We followed the breaking story for a bit, and I loaded up my stuff in the pickup, and then we loaded the goats into a huge oversize dog kennel crate in the back of the truck, put some hay and water in there, and ratchet strapped the thing down and across the door to ensure nothing came loose for the 6 hour trip from northern Indiana down to Nashville, TN. I said some hasty goodbye's and hit the county roads out from their house toward the main highway. We had heard that the tragic accident had happened on State Road 25 between Rochester and Mentone, and a co-worker of my SIL had called her and told her she'd had to detour around it on her way in to work at the church day-care that my SIL was going to work at later, but that's about all we'd heard. As I wound my way out across the Tippecanoe River bridge the 2 miles roughly from my BIL's house to SR 25, I was shocked as I approached the stop sign to see the accident had happened not 200 yards from the bridge... the troopers had the road blocked and I could see the investigation continuing around the RH curve and slightly up the hill at a trailer park overlooking that stretch of the river, right up against the highway. I eased out on the road heading south toward Rochester and found another pair of trooper's cars blocking the road, diverting traffic east on the next county road south around the accident. I stopped as they were motioning a semi out from the county road back onto the highway, until it was clear and I could ease on by them and head on into town to pick up 31 South headed for Indianapolis. I followed the story the rest of the day on the radio as reports came in until I was in central Kentucky in the early afternoon.

Apparently, about 7:15 AM, four children were at their bus stop waiting for the Tippecanoe Valley School corporation bus to pick them up. It was an 11 year old boy attending Valley Middle School, unrelated to the rest of the kids, a 9 year old girl, and her two 6 year old twin step-brothers. The bus had stopped heading north, across the road from the trailer park. The driver had deployed his stop lights and stop sign on the bus, and apparently saw the truck coming "a good bit away" and motioned the kids to cross the road and get on the bus. As the kids were crossing the road, a Toyota Tundra or Tacoma pickup was heading south, driven by a 24 year old young woman heading to her church day-care job at a different church in Rochester. She was apparently driving about 45 miles an hour, after having dropped off her husband at work just a few minutes earlier. This was corroborated by a witness following her in her car. The witness said she saw the bus and started braking to a stop, but the pickup continued on and didn't stop. The young woman, Alyssa Shepherd (IIRC), stated that she didn't realize that it was a school bus; she only saw the headlights and thought it was a large truck in the road. By the time she saw the lights and stop sign and realized it was a bus and hit the brakes, it was too late-- the kids were right in front of her. The bus driver reported seeing her coming and when he realized she wasn't stopping, he hit the horn to warn her and the kids, but it was too late... she struck all four kids with her pickup. The girl and twin boys were killed, and the 11 year old unrelated boy suffered terrible injuries and was life-flighted to Fort Wayne hospital and whisked into surgery... he survived and is in stable condition, but his leg is pinned together in multiple places, he has a busted kneecap, slipped disks in his back, and they already had a plastic surgeon in to start to reconstruct his face, and many other broken bones. The driver of the pickup cooperated fully with the police investigation, and later went on to her job at the day care at a church in Rochester. The police arrested her there at 4 pm, charging her with 3 counts of reckless homicide (felonies), and a misdemeanor charge of passing a stopped school bus displaying stop signals and causing bodily injury. She bonded out on $15,000 bail.

The kids' uncle, brother of the twin boy's Dad and step-Dad of the little girl, spoke on the TV about the fact that several families in the trailer park had complained repeatedly to the Valley school corp. that it was too dangerous for the kids to be crossing the road in the dark to get on the bus, and that the bus should pull into the trailer park to pick up the kids for school, but had been rebuffed. The school corporation later issued a statement that starting November 1st, the bus would pull into the trailer park to pick up the kids from now on. The 11 year old sister of the kids who were killed had a doctor's appointment later that day and wasn't waiting for the bus with them like normal, which possibly saved her life. The driver of the pickup has a 2 year old and a 4 year old kids of her own.

I've driven that stretch of road hundreds of times, and it's kind of a risky area... The BIL farms one of his uncle's places about a mile or so down on the next county road north of there, so I've driven the semi hauling grain and the tractors pulling the auger cart or disk and rolling basket down the highway there many times, as well as that being the main highway between Rochester and Mentone where my mother-in-law lived for many years until she passed away... and of course my BIL and SIL live a couple miles back on the county roads to the west of the Tippecanoe River. When I pull out with equipment or the semi heading for town from the Uncle's place, it's kind of a pucker moment because the main road has a slight hill as one heads south towards town, and the road curves to the right as you crest the low hill about a 1/4 mile from the stop sign. Vision is unrestricted to the north for at least a mile or so, but crossing the road where someone crests the hill doing 60-65 mph (the speed limit is 55) kinda makes your butt pucker when you have to run gears in a slow moving heavily loaded semi or get a tractor and 50 feet of disk and rolling basket across the road that's 15 feet wide and moving slowly. What's worse is, the road is cut into a hillside on the east and has a guardrail to the west side with a steep drop down to the river bottom and an old oxbow branch of the river or something with standing water in it... no place to go, and with the duals of the tractor just off the guard rail the other side duals are on the yellow line. As you crest the hill heading south, around the bend in the road with trees growing up on the riverbank to the guardrail, the road sweeps to the right and starts descending gradually, curving back to the left slightly in front of the trailer park about another 1/4 mile down the road or so. The road straightens out some, then drops again more steeply and curves somewhat more sharply to the left, as it bottoms out about a 100 yards from the T-intersection with the bridge over the Tippecanoe River and the county road leading west toward the other county road running in front of my BIL's place. Coming out of there off that bridge and pulling out onto the road with a loaded semi or tractor and equipment is also a pucker-factor, because the sight distance is about maybe 1/4 mile AT MOST to the north (left) and maybe 100 yards to the south (right) as you come off the bridge, and it's uphill BOTH WAYS, with the steepest part of the hill immediately to the right as you turn south towards town (and have to run gears in the semi going uphill with a fully loaded truck from a stop sign at the end of the bridge... I'm lucky if I can have her up to 25 mph by the time I crest the hill 1/4 mile or so after I've pulled out on the main road from the stop sign at the end of the bridge...) People tend to come blowing through there at 60-65 mph, and really have to be paying attention for trucks and farm machinery-- in the dark with a schoolbus and kids crossing the road, it's just not good at all.

In addition, the Indiana DOT issued a statement that they've had 542,000 reports of drivers blowing past stopped school buses in the last year alone... which to me begs the question, "WHY aren't they doing something about that??" I drove a school bus for nine years, and I can tell you there are more than a few 'pucker moments' on that job... if it's not kids or parents, it's the other IDIOTS on the road. I had some ease by illegally, but the most brazen was one day an AT&T "U-verse" installer van blew past me on a street without even slowing down... lights and stop sign deployed notwithstanding... FORTUNATELY it was a right-hand drop-off and not kids crossing the road, but still... I got his number and reported him; HOPE he got fired! If the DOT has half-a-million-plus reports of cars blowing past stopped buses, seems to me it's time for some "targeted enforcement" and wouldn't be THAT hard to tell all the troopers and local police/sheriff deputies and stuff to find a school bus and follow it every morning or evening for a week or two when going out or returning from patrol and pulling over and writing a hefty ticket to any drivers that blow past a school bus that's stopped with its flashing lights on... That would certainly put the word out and curtail some of that, and penalize some of that nonsense and get people's attention... There's just no excuse for blowing past a stopped bus, and the possible ramifications are too terrible to contemplate.

That said, I think it was just a terrible accident from what I've read and heard since then. The young woman wasn't speeding (corroborated by a witness following her), and wasn't driving drunk or high or playing with her phone or otherwise distracted (at least not that I've heard). She claims to have seen the headlights and thought it was a simply a big truck, an didn't realize that the stop sign was out and loading lights on the bus were on indicating it was a stopped bus, until it was too late. I suppose that's possible, particularly when picking kids up in the dark like they were. It wasn't foggy or raining, but it was a fairly dangerous stretch of road, with an "S" curve and cresting a hill and heading down into another hollow, one on one end of the S curve the other at the other end of it... I think it was tragic accident and yes the young woman driver should be held to some account for it, but I don't see the point in putting her in prison and depriving her own two young children of a mother. Probation, fines, community service, whatever a jury thinks is appropriate, but prison, no, not in my opinion anyway. If she was drunk or high or fiddling with the phone or whatever, sure-- throw the book at her, but she's by all accounts a nice young Christian woman raising her family and working at a church day care to provide income for her family; not some low-life dope-head or scumbag type. Sad as it may be, accidents, even terrible accidents, DO happen without there being any malice or intent. She wasn't speeding to get to work or intentionally blowing past other vehicles... SO I hope that counts for something... She's going to have to live with that knowledge that she killed three kids and grievously injured another for the rest of her life at any rate, and that will be a terrible burden to bear. The bus driver as well-- he had seen her pickup coming by all accounts but said it was "a ways off" and he motioned for the kids to come on across anyway, evidently ASSUMING that she saw him and would stop, which she said she didn't, and tragedy resulted. That was one reason were were always told to NEVER wave kids to come across the road-- they are in a better position to see and decide whether it's safe to cross or not. When I was driving a bus, we also had to set the park brake and shift the bus in neutral, and get out and walk the kids across major highways like that... there was talk about the time I left of doing only right-hand pickups on major roads, so that NO kids had to cross the highway-- but that means either two buses have to overlap those stretches of the route going opposite directions, one picking up one side of the road, the other picking up the kids on the opposite side of the road, OR the bus has to double-back and cover the same stretch of road picking up the kids on one side first, the picking up the other side after they double back. Then of course you have irate parents complaining that their kid has to get on the bus 15-20 minutes earlier or ride the bus another 15-20 minutes in the afternoon than the kid right across the road, and "that's not fair"... (no matter what you do, you can't please modern parents it seems). Which brings up another point-- if the parents of the trailer park had been complaining to the school corporation that it was dangerous for the kids to cross the road to catch the bus in the dark, then WHY weren't they doing anything about it?? Seems to me the parents COULD have taken turns escorting the kids to the bus stop in their bathrobes and slippers or whatever, or driving them out to the bus stop, and telling the kids when it was safe for them to cross the road, regardless of the bus driver's signals... or just parked on the opposite side of the road til the bus got there, and then having the kids pile out and get on the bus without having to cross the road at all. It was stupid of the school corporation to not heed the risks and consider the consequences and the area (they have since agreed to pick up the kids in the trailer park itself, and have asked the troopers and sheriff to review ALL the school's bus stops for safety and suggest any needed changes... sadly too little too late...) Sadly in this day and age, too many parents take too much "nonsense" to their school officials in complaints about EVERYTHING (snowflakes) and LEGITIMATE concerns or problems often get lost in the mix, or swept under the rug... not to absolve the school of responsibility, because ultimately it IS their responsibility to do the most to ensure safety in bus transportation (which will NEVER be 100% safe, granted). Was it cocky or arrogant school administrators that just brushed off their concerns with a "nothing bad has happened, so nothing bad WILL happen" type attitude... sadly I've seen my share of that; it's just human nature in a lot of cases-- particularly with over-educated and arrogant school administrators that dismiss anything coming from "lowly uneducated peasants" like bus drivers or those living in trailer parks since they "obviously" don't have as much education and therefore "aren't as smart as they are"... It can and does happen; seen it first hand. I guess it'll all come out in the end-- I'm sure there'll be a trial and a slew of lawsuits against several different people and schools and stuff before it's all over... Sadly, though, nothing can bring those 3 children back... they're gone forever.

Heard there was another incident yesterday in Florida, similar but thankfully nobody was killed... people need to just slow down and take a little time... being late isn't the worst thing that can happen by a long shot. When I drove bus what scared the willies out of me the most was driving on foggy mornings. In Indiana, they delay school sometimes for 2 hours, sometimes more if it's a particularly bad foggy morning... we NEVER did anything like that in Texas, despite heavy fog in the fall and spring as the weather changes from winter to summer and back again. There were MANY days I picked up kids in the dark or twilight or at dawn in solid fog I was doing good to see the road over the hood of the bus, let alone kids on the roadsides or in the road itself... I picked up a route of country roads and when I got to the heavily traveled main highway, all I could do was open the door and window beside me, and LISTEN for roaring tires on pavement to know whether it was safe to pull out onto the road or not, because I CERTAINLY couldn't see... I called is the "listen, pucker, pull out, and pray" maneuver... But it's all we could do. One of these days it's going to catch up to them, tragically I'm afraid...

Anyway, just be careful out there... this harvest more than any has reiterated just how fragile life can be, and how things can change in an INSTANT and have life-long consequences or bring life to an end... Take a little time, don't rush, and think of what can happen if things go wrong... the life (or limb) you save may be your own, or an innocent bystanders...

Then, of course, to top it all off, October 25th was the second anniversary of my Dad's passing away from cancer and other health problems... And the sixth anniversary of my going to Indiana to help with harvest because of my BIL's brother getting killed earlier that summer in a car wreck.

Anyway, take care and be careful! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Forgot the picture of the paper story about the lady who got pulled into the corn head and lost both an arm and a leg...

Here it is. Very inspirational I thought.









Later! OL J R


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Sad, sad, sad about the kids. I couldn’t even hold it together to tell my wife the story on them when I heard it on the radio Tuesday.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

haybaler101 said:


> Sad, sad, sad about the kids. I couldn't even hold it together to tell my wife the story on them when I heard it on the radio Tuesday.


Yes, it certainly was... That was my deepest fear as a bus driver... hitting or running over a child. You're basically in a semi, so you can't see very well, particularly ahead in front of the grill and radiator. Thankfully they've put the ball mirrors on them sticking out so you can see the front bumper and the ground in front of you, in a way-- being a ball mirror means the image is terribly distorted and it's hard to see things because they're much smaller than normal, but at least you have a shot at seeing someone. Some buses have fold-out loops of metal that force the kids to walk about 5-6 feet in front of the bumper to get around it; ours never had that, but I think it's a good idea... it's mounted on the same sort of folding mechanism that is operated by the door loading lights system that operates the fold-out stop signs with the blinking red lights. No matter what you do, NOTHING is going to be 100% safe for ever and always... but I think that you SHOULD do the best you CAN do... overlooking things or refusing to do things because they're "inconvenient" or whatever is not good practice IMHO. I mean, when you consider the consequences. BUT, it's human nature to take shortcuts and get comfortable with the 'status quo' and take things for granted, with the attitude that "since nothing bad HAS happened, nothing bad WILL happen or CAN happen". Even NASA did this, and lost two shuttles because of it. It's just human nature I guess... I mean, I'm not a "safety sally" so to speak, BUT, there's a difference between "taking chances" and "taking STUPID chances"... Hope that makes sense.

I forgot to mention, but to top it all off, my nephew nearly wrecked out coming home from work. He works for Pioneer seed division and he's working third shift-- they rotate them in and out of it for three week intervals, since nobody wants to work nights full time so it seems (don't know why-- I LOVED working nights at the nuke plant-- a lot less hectic and quieter, and I adapted quickly to working all night-- it was the adapting to getting up early again that was the killer for me). Anyway, he was coming home from work, got about a mile from his house, and fell asleep behind the wheel. He drifted off the left side of the one lane county road and clipped a large concrete property line marker/corner post thing... about a 1x1 foot square concrete post about 8 feet tall, with large concrete angled buttresses on either side. There were a couple of bolts or something sticking out to attach fencing to, and they started clipping his truck right over the front wheel, scratched the paint from one end of the truck to the other, put a couple creases in the door-- the huge fold-out mirror of course got obliterated when it hit the post, and the bolts continued scratching down the side of the truck as it went, getting progressively worse as it got near the rear end of the bed, where one of them ripped a hole in the sheet metal of the bed side before it shattered the taillight. We drove by and saw his tire tracks in the grass where he whipped back in onto the road... the two bolts on the post were folded over from sliding down the side of the truck. He was VERY lucky-- another foot over and he'd have hit it square on and might not be with us any more... and his first child is due in February. There's also a lot of Mennonite school kids out in the area that ride bicycles or little pony carts to school and it would have been very very terrible had any kids been on the road...

Just gotta REALLY be careful!!!

Betty was crying awhile ago... Apparently whatever school in the area that Valley is playing tonight had a "Valley day" and they all wore green and gold (Valley's colors) and several other school corporations in the nearby area joined in, to support the Valley students and staff in this tragedy... that small town community spirit coming through; something you don't see much from these urban and suburban areas...

Later! OL J R 

I


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Wow, that's a crazy inspirational story.....

We had the same thing happen with a bus the other day here....two children, brothers 10 and 7 I think, getting on the school bus in the a.m. And a girl passes the stopped bus.....the older kid pushed his brother out of the way and got ran over.....the older child died at the scene, the younger one was injured but survived.


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

It has been maybe 20 or 30 years ago we had a child killed by a hit and run driver as she was at bus stop. Car was seen by witnesses but not enough to locate it. Belief was it went into body shop that day or hauled out of area or such as never solved.

No way to even imagine the hurt the family feels and if an honest accident the person driving feels. Hard to believe those who do not get caught can ever have a minute of peace. Your words of wisdom are appreciated Jeff.


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