Not wearing his seatbelt? How could that be?

Published Nov. 19, 2014
By Marilee Reuter
375 AMW Safety Office

Winter 2014 -- I am a mom. I love the Air Force and I have a great job, but the best part of my life is being a mom. I'm a mom eight times over: five stepchildren (two from my first marriage) and three biological children.

I became a stepmom to Christopher and April when I married their father in 1984. Christopher was nine and April was six. I loved the kids from the beginning--they were awesome! In 1987, Christopher came to live with us fulltime. We were thrilled.

In 1988, we moved from Minot AFB to Seymour Johnson AFB. It was a wonderful move. We were now only a three-hour drive from April, and the kids were able to see each other all the time. In September 1988, I had a baby boy and we named him Thomas. Chris loved being a big brother, and he was very good at it.

Things changed for Chris when he was a senior. His father and I separated and after a short time, he came to live with me. I was his mom!

When he joined the Army, I supported his decision. He picked the Army because they offered more money for college than the Air Force, and they had a two-year enlistment. He was going to test it out. Maybe he would do his two years and get out ... maybe he would make the Army a career.

Chris entered the Army in July 1992. He went through Basic Training at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. Basic was a bit rough, but overall he loved it. In September, he graduated Basic and I was there. The next day, he left for tech training at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio. He was going to be a medical technician; he wanted to help people, and he said it would give him great career opportunities when he got out. He embraced the training and the Army way of life. His first permanent station was at Ft. Lee, Virginia. He made friends and got settled. He and a buddy kept in touch with some girls from Indiana they met while they were in training, and they made several weekend trips up to Indiana to visit them.

In May 1993, I accepted a job in the Safety Office at Minot AFB--the same office I had worked in as a SSgt, but now I was a civilian. I couldn't wait to move back to Minot. I was a single parent, and it was a great place to raise kids.

On the Friday before Memorial Day, I was out in the housing area with CES looking at a drainage problem when a MSgt from my office pulled up in her car. She motioned me over to talk. She told me she was glad she found me--Chris had been in a car accident and I needed to call his dad. I went back to the office. The number I had to call was at a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. When I reached his dad, he told me the grim news. Chris had been in a car accident early Friday morning; he had a broken neck and he was in intensive care. It appeared he would be a quadriplegic, but he had stabilized. The accident was a one-car rollover, and Chris was not wearing his seatbelt. Not wearing his seatbelt? How could that be?

It seems that he and his buddy were working a swing shift Thursday night. It was pretty quiet at work, so their supervisor let them off early. They were thrilled--a three-day weekend extended to four. They went to the dorm, grabbed their stuff, and left for Indiana in Chris' little gold Mitsubishi pickup truck. They were going to see the girls. Between the two of them, they planned to drive straight through, be in Indiana for the holiday weekend, and be back at work on Tuesday afternoon for swing shift. Sometime after midnight, while his buddy was driving, Chris took off his seatbelt so he could stretch out and get some sleep. His buddy either fell asleep or reached for something--he doesn't remember--but in a split second, the truck left the interstate going approximately 60 miles per hour and rolled. Chris was thrown out of the truck. His buddy stayed in the truck; he had his seatbelt on and only had a broken ankle. A vehicle behind them saw the lights leave the road and stopped to help. It took a while to find Chris, but his buddy was adamant that there had been someone else with him. Once they found him, they were both transported to the hospital.

In the week that followed, Chris remained stable and began to improve. His dad told me to stay in North Dakota because they were going to move him very soon to a VA hospital in Virginia so he could start rehabilitation. I had a TDY to Langley AFB in Virginia coming up in a couple of weeks, so I planned to take leave and go visit him then. I couldn't wait to see him!

The weekend following the accident, I went to Minneapolis for a Drill Weekend, as I was a MSgt in the AF Reserve. It was my first weekend assigned to the Safety Office in a new unit. When I walked into my hotel room, the message light was flashing on the phone. I had a message to call back to Minot. Thomas, my four-year old son, was staying with friends while I was at drill. They had called and wanted me to call them right away. I was worried that something might have happened to Thomas. I called them and learned that Thomas was fine, but Chris' dad had called trying to get ahold of me. After a long pause, they told me that Chris had died. They said there had been complications. Chris died on June 4--my birthday.

Chris was only 18 when he died. He had touched many lives and left behind lots of family and friends. In July this year, Chris would have turned 40. I've celebrated my last 21 birthdays remembering that date was the day he died.

You see, parents aren't supposed to lose their children. We never completely get over it.
Please don't drive when you are tired. Don't drive when you are normally asleep. Wear your seatbelts. Wear them every time you get in a car. Wear them for your family and your friends, because you don't get a redo.

Fire Accreditation team