Emergency responders, including Worden Volunteer Fire Department personnel, Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Kirk Robbins, and a Yellowstone County sheriff’s deputy, cut apart a Honda Accord to remove passenger Zackery Kirkpatrick. (Tana McNiven photo)
Visitation, Funeral planned for HP Student
UPDATE: Visitation will be Thursday September 24 from 6-8pm at Heights Family Funeral Home while the Funeral will be on Friday September 25th at 2pm at Heights Family Funeral home. YCN apologizes for the incorrect dates as printed in this week’s paper.
WORDEN — An 18-year old boy died Wednesday after being injured in a two-vehicle accident Thursday, Sept. 17 near Worden.
A spokesman for the Yellowstone County Coroner’s office on Wednesday said that Zackery Kirkpatrick, 18, died from blunt force trauma injuries he suffered in the accident.
He was a student at Huntley Project High School. The 15-year-old driver of the car in which he was a passenger has not been identified.
Carl Midgley, chief of the Worden Volunteer Fire Department, described the accident as a tragedy for everyone involved.
“I was first on the scene,” Midgley said Wednesday. He arrived to find a GMC Yukon and a Honda Accord in a hayfield off the northwest corner of the intersection of West I and North 12th roads.
Midgley said the Yukon struck the passenger side of the Honda.
“The impact was so hard that both vehicles ended up in the hayfield” 10 yards off the road, Midgley said. “It was an accident, from all I can tell.”
The adult, female driver of the SUV, who has not been identified by the Montana Highway Patrol, refused medical treatment, Midgley said.
“We never even saw her,” he added.
In the Honda, “the driver was awake and breathing. He was able to get out of the vehicle,” where he sat down and waited for ambulances to arrive.
Midgley requested ambulances, but was told the Help Flight helicopter was not available. He said he assumed that was because of inclement weather, since rain had started to fall, but said he did not ask why.
The passenger, Zackery, “was not awake and not breathing very well,” Midgley said. He was pinned in the car. Midgley and other emergency responders helped keep his airway open and when EMTs arrived he turned over care to them.
The two vehicles were intertwined, Midgley said.
“We hooked up that SUV to a fire truck and my pickup,” a fire department command truck, Midgley said. “We pulled it off of that car.”
He said it was hard to describe how the vehicles were placed, but the SUV blocked access to the passenger, who was pinned between the crushed passenger door and the driver’s seat.
“We couldn’t get to him without pulling that little vehicle apart,” Midgley said. “We chose to cut the roof off.”
Firefighters also cut off the driver’s side doors and then were able to remove the passenger “fairly quickly,” Midgley said. In total, “it took about 30 minutes to get him out.”
Rain continued to fall “but it didn’t affect” the accident response other than possibly grounding the helicopter, Midgley said.
Midgley said five other firefighters and three EMTS responded from the Worden department with one fire truck and his command truck.
Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Kirk Robbins, who responded to the accident, said it will remain under investigation for at least 30 days, a standard procedure in fatal accidents.
Robbins said he was dispatched at 5:17 p.m. and arrived to find several passersby helping those involved in the crash. Ambulances from the Worden Volunteer Fire Department and AMR from Billings also arrived, as did a Yellowstone County sheriff’s deputy and the Worden firefighters and EMTs.
“The driver was awake and out of the car,” Robbins said. The passenger was trapped inside. Robbins said the accident occurred when the Honda Accord, northbound on North 12th Road, ran a stop sign and was T-boned by the SUV, which was westbound on West I Road.
Both passenger and driver were taken by ambulance to St. Vincent Healthcare, Robbins said. The driver was released from the hospital two days later.
Robbins said the driver, who was 15, did not have a driver’s license.
Midgley said the accident was a hard one for his department.
“Several of our firefighters either knew the boys or were related to them,” he said.
Fire department personnel met two days later for a debriefing, he said.
“We did have an internal meeting on Saturday night for everybody that was involved,” Midgley said. “What we saw, what we felt we could’ve done better, our questions, our concerns.”
Anyone from the department who wishes to can meet again this week with a hospital counselor, Midgley said. In a rural area where so many people know each other or are related, it’s hard to respond to emergency calls where responders have to treat victims they know.
“We deal with that almost daily,” Midgley said. “Everybody knows somebody.”
Huntley Project Schools Superintendent Wes Coy said Wednesday that school officials are doing their best to help students and staff members this week.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families,” he said. “What a tragic event.”
“We are providing whatever counseling is needed for not only students but staff,” he said. “We have a crisis plan, but every event is unique” and the district’s crisis plan continues to evolve, Coy said. “We have had counseling services available” since last week. “Our staff is dedicated” to helping students and each other, he said.
A GoFundMe account has been set up to help Zackery’s family with expenses:
https://www.gofundme.com/394jr3gw
