Benefit for Teen in UTV Crash Hits Home

This is personal for me, considering it involves my dear sweet mother, Pam Clements. She was restless one Saturday night (early Sunday morning actually) at her home in West Richland and just by chance happened to be outside on her back patio when she heard an unsettling ruckus. She froze for a moment to listen, she was trying to decipher what it was that she had just heard, it was close, maybe across the street?

Pam lives on Grosscup boulevard and it is a very busy street so she is used to hearing the sounds of traffic and the trailers bumping down her street. But this was different, way different. Like a crash different, but there were no screeching tires or metal crushing sounds. It was eerie different. A little spooked she made her way around to the front of the house, that runs the length of the main street and she looked and listened. That is when she saw the lights, but they were wrong. There was a vehicle with their lights on just across the canal from her home, but the lights were pointing to the sky. It was confusing. There were no sounds. Just nothing.

Suddenly there was a voice. She describes it as a young girl calling out for help or calling out trying to find someone. That is when she ran, she ran to the phone and dialed 911. The voice kept calling out, calling out a name she could not decipher. Pam was just far enough away and separated by a canal that the decision to call 911 was the best decision. She stayed on the phone with the 911 operator and described everything she was seeing and hearing. Emergency help was on it's way and they arrived literally in just minutes. Thankfully they did.

What Pam had heard and had witnessed was a UTV that had ran off the road and was entangled in a fence just off Canal Dr. carrying five people. Four of those individuals were transported to the hospital with serious injuries. Tyler Young was one of the most seriously injured and is the only remaining of the four in the hospital and he has a long road to recovery.

Mike and Dashia Hopp, owners of The Dive in Richland are hosting a benefit spaghetti feed Sunday March 21 from 4:00-7:00 p.m. They will have a raffle, a silent auction along with Spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. All proceeds will go to help relieve some of the financial burden for Tyler and his family.

Dashia is accepting donated items to help with the auction. If you have something you would like to donate you can contact her at 509-316-3483 or email her at thediverichland@gmail.com