Williams News Logo
Grand Canyon News Logo

Trusted local news leader for Williams AZ and the Grand Canyon

Guest column: A mother tells Chas' story

I am writing this today with a heavy heart, once again grieving the senseless loss of five more young people. My name is Rose Newbold and I am the Recreation Director for the city of Williams. Most of you know who I am but many of you are not familiar with my story.

I have worked with recreation here since 1996. I was in the process of opening the Skate Park in November of 1997 when my daughter called from California with the news that is every parent's worse nightmare. My son Chas was the driver of a vehicle that had been involved in an accident. Three 15-year-old girls were killed on impact.

I was called to Modesto to authorize taking my son off life support. If you have never experienced this moment in your life you cannot imagine the total mental and physical devastation that overwhelms you. I spent 10 hours driving to Modesto, Calif. in shock, praying that there was some mistake. By the time we had gotten to Barstow, I called to let him know mama was coming please hang on. They said he had awakened and squeezed my daughter's hand with his arm that was still intact. Hope!

When I entered the neuro-trauma ICU unit, there was no mistake. There laid my son, the right portion of his forehead was smashed, he was semi-conscious, he squeezed my hand when I told him I was there, I tried to tell him he would be all right. I think I was trying to tell myself that somehow he would survive. His left elbow was completely gone. The doctors said if they could stabilize the pressure in his head they would reconstruct his arm and his leg.

During the next seven days he lived through crisis after crisis, three maybe four brain surgeries. You lose track of days, procedures, reports from different doctors. It becomes a blur, going to the chapel begging and bartering, anything you can do to ask God to help keep him alive. He never made it to the surgery that would have placed his tracheotomy tube in his throat instead of through his mouth.

On the eighth day of this nightmare Chas suffered a grand mall seizure. By the time I was allowed back into his room I knew he was gone. Twenty-five minutes without oxygen. No brain wave activity. The only thing keeping his body breathing was the machine. My husband, my daughters and I struggled for five days with a decision no one should ever have to face.

Ultimately, 13 days after the accident, we released his body and let his heart and soul go to Heaven. His son was born two days after he died, six weeks premature and will be 10-years-old this November. The only thing he knows about his father is that we loved him; he died in a car accident and what he looked like from pictures.

My purpose in telling Chas' story is not to seek pity or to scare anyone, but to tell all of the young people out there exactly how their choices affect everyone that loves them. On Sunday, Sept. 9, my son would have been 29-years-old. Instead of teasing him about his turning 30 next year, our family grieves. Instead of watching his son turn 10 this year, we once again show him pictures and tell him daddy is in Heaven.

I live with the guilt everyday of those girls and their families that don't get to celebrate their daughters 25th birthdays. No high school graduations for them. No weddings, no grandchildren, only never-ending grief and a hole in their hearts.

Nobody was drunk in Chas' accident. No one was on drugs. He was driving at an excessive rate of speed through a winding mountain road, passing cars without a second thought. The final car he passed was on a curve, little did he know a logging truck was coming in the other direction around that same curve. I will always wonder what I could have done to keep him out of that car that day.

Chas' choice to drive that car in an unsafe manner cost him his life. The girls' choice to cut school and get into that vehicle with him cost them their lives. These choices had dire consequences.

A vehicle, when driven without proper respect, can be a deadly weapon. Your choice to drive drunk or impaired in any way is a choice that could cost you your life or the life of a dear friend or the life of a totally innocent stranger. Your choice to drive at an excessive rate of speed could cost you your life.

Try to remember the faces of these young people the next time you are in a position to make a choice. Make the smart choice, if you are impaired; call someone to get you home safely. Make the smart choice, use your seatbelts. Make the smart choice, drive the speed limit. If necessary make the smart choice for your friends and don't allow them to get behind the wheel when they are impaired. All of the young people we have lost in these tragic preventable accidents were not bad people; they ultimately made bad choices that cost them their lives.

It's been 10 years and I still grieve everyday. My family will always have a hole where Chas is supposed to be. There is nowhere in the circle of life that children are supposed to precede their parents in death.

The message I would like to convey to all of you kids and young adults is to think about the choices you make. Think about the possible consequences. Think about what these five families have to live with for the rest of their lives. You will go on, most of you will forget about Matthew Dent, Matthew Small, Jesse Buchmoyer, Prescott McDaniel and Elena Rivera, but their families never will! They will grieve for what should have been everyday for the rest of their lives.


Donate Report a Typo Contact