A Friday we will never forget.

Me and Steve took off to the cabin on Wednesday to spend a couple of days alone and catching up on projects that needed finished.  Thursday we spent outside doing yard work and spraying weeds.  We decided to take a break and drive up the road to Tom's cabin.  Once we left Tom's cabin I had the strange thought that we should see if we could run from it to our cabin.  We set the speedometer on to see how far it was and it ended up being around 4 miles.  To most people that would be an easy run, but I hate to run and it's never been easy for me.  The feeling persisted and we decided that night that we would do the run around 10:00 in the morning.  That night I went for a walk and Steve took the four-wheeler out for a drive.  He was late getting home and I was worried that I would have to go look for him.  He said he was talking to the trapper "Pete".  I said his name is not Pete and finally remembered it was Robert.  We would usually see him up here and talk to him during the year.  He is from Duchesne and married to my second cousin Linda.  That morning we got dressed and climbed in the ranger to do the run.  Almost to the top of the dugway Steve noticed something out of the corner of his eye at the bottom.  He slammed on the brakes and we backed up.  We both jumped out when we saw the truck and the horse standing at the bottom. 

I told Steve I would go call 911 and he headed down the mountain.  I raced back to the cabin and dialed 911.  It was very frustrating when she kept asking for my coordinates and what the mile marker post was.  Also I had no idea what Steve was going to find at the bottom.  Finally she got the sheriff and ambulance on the way and I went back up to the top.  Two hunters had stopped and Steve yelled that he was still alive, but barely breathing and to make sure an ambulance was coming.  I ran back down to call 911 and they told me they were on there way and life flight was also coming.  I called my brother's cell phone to see if he was anywhere near the ranch to come help.  No answer so I called my Mom and told her what had happened.  She then called Nancy to see where Ken was and Nancy called Linda, Roberts wife and picked her up and flew up the road.  Finally the sheriff got there and surprisingly made it down the mountain.    Soon after the ambulance from Tabionia made it and the emt's got down to Steve.  He had been  down there holding Robert's head and talking to him for about 40 minutes.  When he first got down there he couldn't find him.  The truck was sideways leaning up against some trees and he had been thrown behind the truck.  He had hit so hard his boots had come off. 

 We felt pretty calm after the emt's got there and life flight was on it's way.  We assumed everything would work out.  They asked Steve if he could drive the ranger up the canyon to help carry Robert out.  Steve meet them halfway and they were performing CPR on him.  They got him out to the clearing by the cabin and one of the ambulances came down.  By then Steve had brought Linda down to him and the sheriff was trying to direct life flight to us.  It landed up on the hill by the other ambulance so they loaded Robert up and continued to work on him while driving up to life flight.

 Life Flight had kept going while the ambulance was driving up and after 10 minutes it shut down and I knew he had not made it.  Talking with my brother later he said alot of accident victims keep breathing until you move them and then their heart gives out.  We have both had a pit in our stomach since then and our hearts break for Linda and her children.  We both know how hard it is to lose a father and he was so young.  Only a year older then Steve.  We will miss seeing his truck and visiting with him.  His horse had a broken leg and they had to put her down and his favorite dog was also killed.  So he was able to take his horse and dog with him.