Sixty years ago, on the night of October 6, 1963, my father Grant L. Collett was working as a Conservation Officer for the Utah Fish and Game as it was called at that time. He and his partner, James Hammer, were working in the Clarkston/Cache Junction area looking for a poacher that was taking game in that area. They had been working with other law enforcement officers, but were heading home at the end of the night.
Dad and Jim were southbound when a northbound car struck dad's truck nearly head-on, deflected off into a stubble field and burst into flames. The impact killed the driver of the car, while the passenger managed to crawl free from the burning car. Passersby stopped and were attempting to put the flames out with dirt from the field. Jim had a bruise from the seatbelt and a small laceration on his chin. The two-way radio in the truck was still working and Jim called out for help. Logan and Cache County fire units responded, as well as Cache County Sheriff's Office and the Utah Highway Patrol.
When the car struck the truck dad was driving, the impact forced the metal dashboard to fold into the cab, crushing dad's right leg above the knee. The engine of the truck was pushed into the cab which forced dad's left femur out through his pelvis and fracturing his hip. It also rolled the firewall into the cab, trapping dad's left ankle. Rescuers had to use a pry bar (seen leaning against the truck below) to get the door off of the truck to get him out, and they broke his ankle pulling him from the wreckage. (The round object in the center of the grill on the car is the metal Fish & Game door placard that was embedded in the grill from the door of the truck where dad was sitting.)
One of the officers responding from Logan had the wherewithal to stop at the hospital. He knew that one of the doctors working there that night had just returned to Logan from a stint in an Army MASH unit in Viet Nam, and took him to the crash site. He performed trauma first aid on dad during the trip in the ambulance.
Mom had gotten a phone call stating simply "Grant has been in an accident and she needed to come to the emergency department. She was sitting in the waiting area when she heard the siren of the approaching ambulance, and watched as dad was wheeled in on the gurney with the doctor sitting on him doing chest compressions and yelling "Someone get me an OR, I have already lost him seven times and I don't know if I can get him back if he dies again!"
That was mom's introduction to how serious things were.
Two days later, dad was transported by ambulance from the Logan hospital to Cottonwood Hospital in Murray, Utah. They wanted to fly him down, but this was pre-helicopter times and the concern was since he was in such bad shape, if things got bad in the plane, they would not be able to get him to a hospital in time. The doctors at Cottonwood Hospital got dad stabilized, and once he was strong enough, they amputated his right leg just above the knee and inserted a replacement hip on his left side, placing steel plates to hold his pelvis back together. His ankle was in a cast, and the kindest thing they could do for him was to alleviate his pain. Since they initially did not think he was going to survive, they kept him sedated with morphine, ultimately getting him addicted to the painkiller. Dad later made a comment that getting off the morphine was worse than the pain he felt from the crash.
Dad suffered pain from the accident for the remainder of his life. He felt phantom pain in his non-existing right leg. His left ankle bothered him, and he was plagued with arthritis in his hips that resulted in requiring a second hip replacement. He also suffered other health issues resulting from the crash, including cardiovascular issues, and during one of his many surgeries for this, he died in surgery.
I often wonder what his life would have been like had this crash not happened to him. I wonder how I would have been different. As a young child when all this happened, our relationship was not what one would consider "typical."
