Oct 3, 2011

With Clair: truck clocked at 90 MPH on a hill

Raising a young family and trying to work didn’t leave a whole lot of time to travel to Duchesne and visit family but when we did I often enjoyed riding with Clair when he would go on patrol with the Highway Patrol. There were a couple of times that I did when the experiences we encountered have stuck with my memory very vividly. The first was what seemed to be a typical day in the petrol car. We went to Fruitland and didn’t encounter any problems until we found a large bull on the wrong side of the fence. Clair decided we should try to put it back onto the correct side of the fence and having both been raised on the farm around cattle figured we could easily accomplish the task.  The bull however had a different view of things at east until it somehow sensed Clair was a bit more serious than he had first determined. We chased that things for what seemed like 15 minutes and it just wouldn’t so back to the other side. We would keep cutting off its retreat and then one time he seemed determined to not allow it anymore and he kept going straight toward Clair. Now had he chosen to challenge me then I am pretty sure he would have won but with Clair there was an extra equalizer called a patrol pistol .357 Mag or something pretty similar in strength and dropping power. That is when the bull must have realized it was in extreme danger and figured Clair would really use the pistol as he pulled it from his holster and leveled it toward his lowered stampeding head. Clair had no more than pulled and leveled the pistol when the bull turned a sharp 90 degrees and jumped the fence back onto the correct side. I personally was glad it was over cause I was very tired by that point and didn’t care to ever see that bull again and to this date haven’t.

Later that night however as we were returning to Duchesne I was watching Clair’s radar unit as it went off reading something at 90 mph.  A few seconds later a large fully loaded semi-truck came up the hill toward us and we both couldn’t figure how it could possibly be doing that speed up a hill on a turn. Well it wasn’t but three young men in a fast car were and they came up around the truck in the inside lane only a few short seconds later. Clair quickly turned on his lights and turned the car around in pursuit of the speeding vehicle. It was six miles later when traveling in excess of 140 mph the car decided to slow down and pull over. Clair during that six miles told me to be sure my seat belt was fastened and I assured him that it was as well as my fingers being buried deep into the dashboard. I had never traveled that fast other than in an airplane on my way to and from my mission in Texas and that of course was in the air unlike where we were at the present. I felt like we were flying low and probably was correct in that feeling.  We pulled to a stop behind the vehicle as the driver quickly bailed out from the car. I still remember the following few moments only as a blur since it happened with lightning speed that I didn’t know was possible. Clair opened his door, pulled his pistol (for the second time that night) and ordered the driver to stop, face the car and put his hands on the roof of it in plain sight. Then only seconds later the passenger side door opened and a second drunk person jumped from the car hollering “Clair don’t you point that gun at my brother”.  The two men were both fellows that I had know growing up and in fact the younger one who was the driver has shared the same name with me through the years. He was Kent Ivie. His brother whose name I can’t remember came around the car until Clair ordered him to stop as well.  By then we knew that there were three men in the car and as Stan Young came from the car we could tell that he was not intoxicated as were his two cousins. He in fact had been the one to talk Kent into pulling over as they went up the hill just prior to where the Tabiona turnoff was located 18 miles west of Duchesne on Highway 40. Clair then arrested Kent and gave Stan the keys so that he could take the car and Kent’s older brother home for the night.  We then took Kent back to Duchesne and booked him into the jail after doing an alcohol test on his blood. His alcohol level was extremely high and well over the state legal level for being not only unable to drive but legally drunk as well.  After we had completed the paperwork in the jail we traveled back to the site of the chase to measure the miles and document all of the information. We clocked the chase to have covered 6 miles. We then drove to the top of the hill where I was very sobered by the next event that Clair explained to me. The pavement had broken out of the highway covering both of the lanes on that side of the road. Clair looked at it and said “The only thing that would have prevented us from rolling out through the trees would have been the fact that they would have done it first.” Again I knew that the Lord had been watching out for us including those who had been drinking. I don’t know why Stan was in the car with them but do know that the Lord had him there for a special reason to help Kent decide to stop even though I am sure that he didn’t know what lay ahead on them in the road only a few short yards up the hill.