Nightmare At Zion
October 13, 1991 By Dale Van Dalsem
The Guardian Angel trip was attended by Jack Knox, Bob Sumner, Stephen Padgett, Bob Wyka, Kent Santelman, George Toby, Judy Ware, Asher Waxman, Vic Henney, Sue Wyman, John McCully, Wendy Ruess, Jay Holshuh, Susan Leverton, Barbara Cohen, Barbara Hoffman, Jim Murphy, Owen Malloy, Tom Scott, and Dale Van Dalsem.
Stephen Padgett carpooled to Zion with me, planning to meet his wife Charyl, and her sister Dawn Hamilton, out visiting from Chicago. Charyl and Dawn were sightseeing in and around Zion while Stephen climbed with us. They met after the climb to drive home together.
Stephen had a great new job as editor of the monthly put out by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, but we daydreamed - about how one might find a job that would enable one to spend more time in southern Utah and the four corners area. He LOVED southern Utah.
Stephen had read everything Ed Abbey and Tony Hillerman wrote. We talked about these authors, as well as his apprehensions about becoming a father, his love for music, writing, and conservation. Stephen was an ardent conservationist who loved the Monkey Wrench Gang. I didn't bring up the Desert Protection Act, knowing we'd be on opposite sides, but knowing that we'd
probably respect each other's position - we both loved the desert and knew it well.
A mile outside the park, just 2.5 miles from the SGA roadhead, Charyl, who was driving, apparently turned to Stephen in the passenger seat and took her eyes off the narrow, paved, unstriped, but straight Kolob road. The right front tire of their nearly new Tercel caught in the soft shoulder. Charyl, startled, cramped the wheel left, and the car skidded across the road and off the 60' cliff some 10' from the edge of the road.
ay and Susan were driving behind them and saw the whole thing. Mine was the next vehicle, with Tom Scott right behind me. Tom drove on to get help. Jay Holshuh and Barbie Hoffman found a way down the class 4 cliff in the dark. Susan and I followed soon after. Jack and Kent and others came down quickly.
The car had flipped and rolled upside down, facing downhill, with interior and headlights still on. Charyl was alive, vocal, logical, and helped direct her rescue from her position hanging upside down in her seat belt.
Stephen, unbelted, was very dead beside her. Dawn was hanging from her seat belt in the back seat, moaning, unconscious, and obviously hurt very badly internally. She died as we removed her. The Hurricane Fire
Department (HFD) truck, an ambulance, and several fireman, most of whom obviously had paramedic training, arrived in an unbelievably short time. Virgin and the farmhouse where Tom stopped are 5.5 miles away, and Hurricane is another 6.5 miles. Seemed like 15 or 20 minutes after Tom sped away that the HFD was there, in force, with trained people and equipment, charging up through the cactus.
Jay, Barbie, and several of the good people from the HFD loaded a still talking Charyl on the ambulance, while I helped with the other stretcher carrying Dawn, who was still receiving CPR although all vital signs were gone. The ambulance sped away and we numbly climbed back into our vehicles, thinking we'd at least helped save Charyl, and probably her unborn child.
Phone calls Sunday morning revealed that Charyl died on the way to the hospital.
Some of us have been very troubled by this horrible nightmare. I've broken down many times; vivid freeze frame flashbacks of a nightmare 8 years ago on the Kahiltna glacier occur more frequently now. The senseless and one-in-a-million and WHAT IF aspects haunt me. A second's inattention at the wheel and 3+ vital, beautiful people are gone.
 
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