An anniversary, an emergency

We spent the anniversary of our building project the same way we began it--doing site work. We went with the low bidder, a local who was well recommended. He said he charged $65 an hour and estimated he'd finish in a day, for approx. $500.

He brought a helper, who brought his 16-year-old grandson Ryan. They began with general clean-up of all the little pieces of debris under the porch.



Then the earth moving began in earnest. There was deep ruts from the winter rains, made worse by the heavy equipment, and the grade needed to be changed so that rain would run away from the house.

We had invited our friends, Myron and Betsy Deibel from Wickenburg, up to see what we were up to. They called and said they were on their way to Prescott and planned to stop by. They had just finished lunch at the bakery.

When they arrived, they asked about a white pickup that had gone off the side of the road. They had stopped and yelled but no one answered. They assumed it was an old wreck, and the hillside was steep, so they didn't try to climb down. We didn't know of any old wreck, but Ryan had left maybe 20 minutes before in a white pickup to work his shift at the Skull Valley Cafe. We got into our truck and followed Myron and Betsy to where they saw the wreck.


Here are the tracks that caught Myron's attention. The road took a sharp turn, but the tracks when straight ahead.











You couldn't see much from the road. If you didn't know to look, it would be easy to miss the truck.











When we climbed down, here's what we found. Judging from the broken trees, the truck had started to roll as soon as it left the road. On the way down, we saw Ryan's cellphone, which was open, making Gerald suspect he was texting or on the phone. There was also a trail of CDs and an Oatman Hotel coffee mug. A pinyon pine had stopped the truck. Ryan was lying on the other side. If not for the tree, it would have rolled on top of him.

Besty called 911. She is a nurse, but was wearing only sandals. She found an easier way down and kept the boy and Myron company until help arrived. Gerald went back for the boy's grandfather and I returned to the top of the hill to direct the emergency vehicles.

When Myron and I reached the boy, he was conscious and complaining of pain in his head. He was airlifted to St. Joe's in Phoenix. Miraculously, he wasn't badly hurt. He had a head injury and possible spinal injury, but no broken bones. The accident occured on Friday. He was released on Sunday.

We all said how fortunate it was that Myron and Betsy came by when they did--it must have been just minutes after the accident--and how amazing it was that they saw the tracks. Had they not, he could have been there for hours or days before he was found and the outcome could have been much worse.

The other two workers came back to finish the job the next day. It took another full day, and still about a third of the work remained. Gerald agreed with the contractor that we should wait until the combo inspection to finish, so the trenches could get filled in.

Still, the low bid was more than we had expected. It took two days instead of one, and the contractor charged us for Ryan's labor, which he had not mentioned when giving us his estimate. Still, Gerald was happy with the work he did.