During the late morning of the 3rd of this month, a Tuesday, dear Wifey and I were eastbound aboard our Winnebago Journey 32T, a diesel pusher. We were on US50, just west of the small town of Kinsley, Kansas, en route to Graceland. I have shared my wife with the ghost of Elvis Presley all these years, and she was finally going to see "his place" for the first time!
We had been following two grain semis that pulled into a right turn only lane to turn onto US56. That intersection had a stop sign for the traffic on US56 to yield to the traffic on US50. Apparently sitting at the stop sign for US56, but we couldn't see him due to the semis, was a small Ford Transit utility van. I don't believe he saw us either. He must have thought that when the two semis pulled into the right turn only lane that the highway was clear. It was not; we entered the intersection at about 50 MPH as he proceeded to cross our path to turn left onto US50.
I had only a split second to react as we T-boned the small van right at the driver's door. He made a hopeless, slight turn to the right just before impact, so he must have known he made a terrible mistake.
I remember the van being pushed east by us as we drifted across the westbound lane, then the van went off to our left as we came to a stop on the shoulder of the westbound lane, facing east. Wifey and I had our seatbelts on and were spared injury.
A burly truck driver saw me waving frantically at our door window because our door was jammed and we couldn't get out. He forced it open, but the sliding platform that opens to access the stairs was also jammed and the metal step did not deploy. We had a three to four foot drop down to the pavement and he gently helped us down - then he was gone, saying he had to get back to his truck. We consider him our hero!
Tragically, the driver of the van died at the scene. We were escorted to a waiting ambulance and seated on a couple of small seats as they checked us old folks out. We were Ok and finally convinced them that we were. I'm a long time heart patient and had to take a nitro for some angina that began, and that stopped the pain.
Our kids from near Denver immediately hopped into their car and headed for Dodge City, Kansas where we had spent the prior night at Walmart, about 30 or so miles from the accident scene. We had spent the prior weekend visiting them at their home. After our taxi ride back to Dodge, we all spent that night at a motel in Dodge City.
The next day, with much help from the kids, we rented a small U-Haul truck and loaded everything from the coach to the truck. Wifey went home with the kids and they put her on a flight home the next day. I drove the U-haul for the next three days to get all our stuff back home.
Just short of three weeks after the crash, our insurance company, Progressive, paid us the agreed value of our coach. They will subrogate the claim to the other driver's insurance as there is no question about fault; it was entirely the fault of the driver of the van.
We have worked diligently putting our claim together to present to the other insurance company. We had so much enjoyment with our coach and now it sits in some Kansas yard, destined to be sold and salvaged.
Meanwhile, the driver of the van left a wife and two young sons. Those poor kids will grow up without their dad, and their mom will never see her husband again. That is the saddest part of this whole story and helps us keep some perspective of our relatively minor losses.
We have several thousands of dollars to recover from the insurance company and at this point are somewhat optimistic that they will cover all our costs. Time will tell, I suppose.
It seems impossible to find another coach like ours so we'll likely end up with another, hopefully nearby but perhaps clear across the country.
I choose to drive the US highways instead of the interstates at every opportunity because we like driving through the small towns and seeing the rural countryside. Now... I often think about how that accident would not have happened had we been on an interstate. But like so many quandaries this experience has created, it's just idle reliving of an event that cannot be changed and it's tough realizing that.
Photos and even more detail are on a page of my website
here. To get to the story of the accident, scroll down to "Day 9".
And thanks; writing this account of our situation has been somewhat therapeutic...
