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Mark Bell | PHOTOGRAPHER CRASH MEMORIAL outside of the Agriculture Science Building.
Remembering an accident 10 years later By Morgan Pratt Robinson Staff Writer
Robbie Petersen said he has learned to not take life for granted after being one of two survivors of a fatal van accident that happened on Sept. 25, 2005; Saturday is the ten year anniversary of the crash. Petersen said he was only a month into his freshman year of studying Agricultural Systems and Technology at Utah State University when the accident happened. He was in a van with his fellow ag-science colleagues when a tire blew out and rolled the vehicle while traveling on Interstate 84. “We were on a field trip for a harvesting class here at Utah State and we went to go look at a piece of equipment out by Tremonton and we had a car accident on the way back,” he said. Petersen said only two of the eleven people survived: Jared Nelson, and himself. The deceased victims were Steven Bair, Dusty Fuhri-
man, Justin Gunnell, Justin Huggins, Jonathan Jorgensen, Curt Madsen, Ryan McEntire, Evan Parker and Bradley Wilcox. “They all passed away as a result of their injuries,” he said. “It was a very tragic occurrence that affected a lot of people. It has greatly affected the families of those involved. It was a very sad time for many of those families. I am sure the wounds haven’t yet and will never heal for them.” Petersen said the other survivor, Nelson, never fully recovered from the crash. “He received some pretty serious brain trauma in the accident,” he said. “Unfortunately he is restricted to a wheelchair and he is really limited in his conscious state. He’s not all there. He is unable to communicate other than he is able to smile and laugh and show some emotion, but he can’t talk and he can’t walk.”
Nelson’s wife Amy has been his primary caretaker for the last ten years, Petersen said. “She has been an angel along the whole way,” he said. “She pushes him around [in his wheelchair] and takes care of him,” he said. “She’s a great example for all of us.” Petersen was the only person to come out of the accident without pervasive injuries, although he did spend two weeks in the hospital after the accident. “I had broken both of my legs, I had some broken ribs, a broken nose, I had a pretty bad fracture in my left foot and some cuts and scrapes,” he said. Being the only person to come away from the accident relatively unscathed is bittersweet, he said. “As a survivor, I got a second chance,” he said. “But at the same time, it is hard and difficult to be the one that more or less walked away from it.”
Reporting tragedy at a school paper: Then & Now By Mandy Morgan Dittto News Editor
It was the evening of Sept. 26, 2005, and Brooke Edwards was sitting outside on a curb on campus. Though she doesn’t remember what function she was at that night or where exactly she sat with friends, she remembers looking over to see her phone ringing. It was Jay Wamsley, the then-advisor for the Utah Statesman. She was the new editor-in-chief for that year. She could have never expected what he told her. “He let me know that this tragic event had happened and was giving me a headsup,” Edwards said, “and was telling me how we could handle this, letting me know what the administrators’ plans were. I was very new, and he wanted me to know how the process worked.”
A van crash had happened a few hours earlier near Tremonton, as 10 students and a faculty member in the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences were returning from a field trip. A tire blew out, and none of the men were wearing seat belts. Eight of the students and the faculty member died either on the scene or during the following day while in the hospital. “Even in the few years I had been there, nothing this tragic had happened,” Edwards said. The night of the accident, (the night she got the call) there had been a “festive event celebrating the beginning of the year.” After word spread of what happened, however, the feeling on campus changed due to loss for so many people,
said. Petersen said one thing he learned from the crash was the power of community. “There was a great outpouring of fasting and prayers and a great deal of support,” he said. “It was
very humbling to see the power of prayer and the power of fasting in my life and in the lives of those that were also affected by the accident.” see Crash page 6
Kyle Todecheene | PHOTOGRAPHER MAKELL JENSEN WITH HER SON EVAN enjoying the parade. Jensen has gone to the parade for the last three years. The Tractor Parade was held on Friday.
REMEMBERING THE 2005 VAN CRASH VICTIMS AT AG BUILDING MEMORIAL By Allie Jeppson
she said. The next few weeks were filled with stories about the accident, policy changes for university travel and the on-going police and university investigations about what had happened, Edwards said. “The most important thing we wanted to do was get a reporter to the meeting with the administration,” Edwards said. Statesman reporters were invited to sit in when administrators first started to field the questions of what happened and what was going to change. Being able to let students know about those things was most important. However, since none of the staff had heard about the crash in time to make it to the scene or have much to write first-hand about the see Reporting page
At first, Petersen said he wasn’t able to come to grips with the accident. “There was a moment in the hospital that I had to come to terms with what happened and I just had to accept it for what it was,” he
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This is an article being rerun from the Hard News Cafe, in 2012 for the memorial remembering the victims of the 2005 van crash. It was just over six-and-ahalf years ago, on Sept. 26, 2005, that tragedy struck Utah State University— eight students and an instructor on their way home from a fieldtrip in Tremonton were killed when a tire blew on their 15-passenger van. The nine victims are remembered daily as students, staff and faculty walk by the 20-foot cement and bronze memorial erected outside USU’s new Agricultural Science and Research Building. The monument was relocated this spring from its previous home in the Taggart Student Center, and honors instructor Evan Parker, 45, of Hooper, and
agriculture students Steven D. Bair, 22, of Moses Lake, Wash; Dusty Dean Fuhriman, 22, of Tremonton; Justin W. Gunnell, 24, of Wellsville; Justin Huggins, 22, of Bear River City; Jonathan Dennis Jorgensen, 22, of Hyrum; Curt A. Madsen, 23, of Payson; Ryan Wayne McEntire, 22, of West Point; and Bradley G. Wilcox, 26, of Salt Lake City—all ejected from the van and killed. Fellow students Jared Nelson and Robert Peterson survived the crash. Unveiled in 2009, the memorial’s nine bronze panels represent each of the victims. It now stands in the new Memorial Plaza outside the Ag Building and adjacent to the USU Quad. It does not stand alone, but is surrounded by trees and a concrete bench with an inscription that reads, “To
honor the men lost, their families and the agricultural community touched by the tragedy of September 2005, this bench provides a place of reflection and comfort. May the spirit of agriculture always be found at Utah State University.” Memory of the eight students extends beyond the memorial plaza and into the new building, with a classroom named after one of the victims, Dusty Fuhriman, made possible by a gift from his father. The classroom, which includes a commemorative plaque in Fuhriman’s honor, will be used by students in the plants, soils and climate department, Cockett said. The bench, donated by 2005-06 ASUSU Agriculture Senator Cody Bingham, is a concise summary see Memorial page 9