Injured Stewartville teen deserted after car accident

Hoss68 · 11-06-2004, 11:23

Joy Powell and Randy Furst, Star Tribune
November 6, 2004

Teenagers driving a stolen car and smashing mailboxes along a country road in southern Minnesota deserted a boy who was paralyzed after the car crashed, authorities said Friday.
"They told him they'd go for help," said Mower County Sheriff Terese Amazi. "No one ever came back."

The 14-year-old Stewartville boy lay seriously injured for nearly seven hours in freezing temperatures. Passers-by on their way to work found him about 7 a.m. Thursday. When deputies arrived, the boy was cold to the touch and unable to move his legs, the sheriff said.

Friday night, as the boy's family kept vigil at a Rochester hospital, the odds seemed high that he would remain paralyzed, his stepmother told Amazi and a neighbor. The stepmother told authorities that his injuries included a punctured lung, a cracked sternum, a neck or back injury, and a compressed spinal cord.

"She said it didn't look good," Amazi said.

The neighbor, Vicki Matzke, said the boy had moved with his father and stepmother from Onalaska, Wis., to Stewartville last spring. They settled in the Countryside mobile home park on the northern edge of Stewartville, a community of 5,400 people in Olmsted County.

The boy and at least one other teen allegedly were joyriding in a car they had stolen in the past week from a dairy farm in rural Stewartville, where the 14-year-old had helped an older friend care for cows over the summer.

"I don't know what possessed him to take it," the farmer, Timothy Yeadon, said Friday night of his suspicion that the 14-year-old and his friends took the car, which had no license plates or insurance coverage. It had been parked with other old cars behind a shed, the keys in the ashtray, Yeadon said.

"The only thing it got used for was to round up cows out in a hay field," he said.

Detective Jon Juenger said the 14-year-old was socializing with other teens Wednesday night. About 12:30 a.m. Thursday, he and another teen were riding in the stolen car, with a third teenager following them in another car through a rural area near Racine in Mower County, about 15 miles south of Rochester.

"Apparently they were driving down the road and whoever was driving lost control of the car," Juenger said. "The young man was tossed out the window. As far as I know right now, he's paralyzed. To what extent and how long, I really don't know."

The boy later told investigators they had been smashing mailboxes, knocking them over with the doors on the vehicle, Amazi said. The car was found with the driver's side door missing.

Juenger said authorities are investigating who was driving the stolen car, but they do know the names of the other teens involved. They drove off in the second car, leaving the 14-year-old sprawled where he landed after being thrown from the smashed-up stolen car.

The National Weather Service said temperatures ranged between 30 and 34 degrees during the six and a half hours the boy lay injured. Passers-by on their way to work found the crashed car and boy lying outside, suffering from hypothermia.

An emergency crew took the teen to Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

"We did transport a patient by helicopter from the rural Racine area," said Glenn Lyden, spokesman for Mayo Medical Transport. "Right now the family has asked that we not provide any more information."

Dr. Michael Spillane of Regions Hospital has worked with other hypothermia cases. He said the injured teen was lucky to survive.

"If he had those injuries, and then he's lying all night in near-freezing or freezing temperatures, and he's still alive, he's a lucky kid," Spillane said.

"Somebody older probably would have died with that. Young people are amazing in terms of their tolerance of lots of things, including cold temperatures."

The neighbor, Matzke, said the boy's stepmother had called from the hospital Friday night and said he might undergo surgery Monday. The family is awaiting test results to determine whether he will be permanently paralyzed, Matzke said.

The family declined to talk to a reporter.

Friday night, Juenger wrapped up a long day of interviewing witnesses about the night's activities. The boy had been tight-lipped on Thursday about the names of the others involved, but he became more cooperative on Friday, the detective said.

No one had been arrested in the case as of Friday night, but the investigative details will be turned over to prosecutors, the detective said.

Amazi said the boy's stepmother wants some answers. So do authorities.

Friday night, Juenger said, he had not yet caught up with the other two teens involved for questioning. He was perplexed, he said, over why they didn't call for medical help for someone so seriously injured.

"I don't know why anybody wouldn't have helped," he said.

Snowden · 11-06-2004, 19:34

It sounds like more could be involved than is showing up in the story yet. It was probably just scared kids - but it just sounds fishy, as well as a terrible thing for this kid and his family.

conlor · 11-06-2004, 21:07

Sounds like both of the other teens have a lesson to learn. The kid went through 6-1/2 hours of hell while lying there and now has to deal with his injuries. He shouldn't have been with them, but kids don't think that way.

Hoss68 · 11-06-2004, 21:15

He could end up charged with the stolen car too...

My brother paid the price for his and a "friends" crime. He got the record, paid the fines and went to prison because he refused to say who the other person was. I knew, guessed first try and saw the flinch... Once he found out I knew, he disappeared~ Unlike my brother I had NO feelings of loyalty or friendship for this POS and he knew I would drop his name if given the opportunity. All I really wanted was for him to be out of my brothers life and I got that...

This boy has so many challenges ahead of him. These "friends" were most likely the kind you fall in to when new somewhere and looking for acceptance. I hope he does not pay more for them more than he already is/has... His family should ask him not to take the full force of this one legally.

Hoss68 · 11-06-2004, 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by conlor

Sounds like both of the other teens have a lesson to learn. The kid went through 6-1/2 hours of hell while lying there and now has to deal with his injuries.

They more or less left him to die... IMO~ Burn them as much as he's been.