Accidental reunion: twenty one years after North Shore crash, woman meets her rescuer
TOFTE, Minn. — Marc Davey produced family pictures. Judith Hazen came with a binder packed with mementos from a previous occasion.
It was the sort of thing one might expect to see at a reunion of two people after more than twenty one years apart — but with a difference.
“Well I have to tell you, I don’t reminisce what you looked like,” Hazen told Davey.
The last time they had seen each other, Hazen was sprawled awkwardly across the driver’s seat of her wrecked one thousand nine hundred eighty eight Mercury Grand Marquis, her head sticking out the violated driver’s side window, shards of glass shredding her right ear. Davey, who had witnessed the accident on state Highway sixty one along Lake Superior’s North Shore a few miles west of Schroeder, had slipped into the passenger side of the vehicle. A military man with training in emergency situations, he was assessing Hazen’s condition, hoping to get her out of the smoking vehicle.
That sunny afternoon of May 15, 1996, Davey, then 30, had been driving to Silver Bay from his work at Lutsen Mountains to pick up his sons at daycare. Hazen, then fifty three and just out of seminary, had been driving up from the Twin Cities for a job interview at Zoar Lutheran Church in Tofte. She was almost there when her car left the road at a curve, spinned twice and slammed into a tree as the westbound Davey observed from his pickup truck.
“I can still see it,” Davey said this week. “Every time I go past there, I can see it.”
Davey, who was worried the vehicle might burst into flames, pulled Hazen out the passenger side and helped her get to safety. Davey then flagged down a passing white Toyota pickup truck. In an era when mobile phones were uncommon, Davey asked the occupants to stop at the nearby home of Bill and Marion McKeever to call for help.
An ambulance arrived, and paramedics took over Hazen’s care. After the sheriff came and took his information, Davey left, late to pick up his children.
Hazen spent that night in the emergency room at North Shore Hospital in Grand Marais but made it to her job interview the next afternoon. She got Davey’s name and sent him a “thank-you” letter a duo weeks later.
He meant to react, Davey said, but didn’t. She left behind that she’d sent the letter, left behind that she’d ever known the name of the man who came to her rescue.
That’s how it stood until last fall, when a class in the St. Paul senior citizen apartment where she lives left Hazen wanting to thank the person she considered an unsung hero from that gig two decades earlier.
With no idea who he was, Hazen contacted the Duluth News Tribune, which published a story last Oct. 30, a Sunday, describing the accident and seeking information about whether anyone knew who the good Samaritan was.
Davey called the newspaper the next day. Information was exchanged, and on Nov. 1, Davey and Hazen spent more than half an hour talking on the phone.
They kept in touch after that. Hazen sent him a copy of her Christmas letter, which included an account of her rediscovery of him. He called her at Christmas.
The two had not reunited face to face until Tuesday, Aug. 29, when they met for lunch at the Bluefin Grille in Tofte. Hazen, who is now seventy four and drives only brief distances, was brought by her friends Dick and Carol Eick of Crimson Wing, Minn. It was Hazen’s very first visit to the North Shore since 1996.
The 52-year-old Davey, a family man and outdoorsman who works at Northshore Mining in his hometown of Silver Bay, arrived after Hazen and her friends. The two embraced, then sat next to each other during lunch, talking permanently about their memories of the accident, their families and their lives.
On the surface, the two couldn’t be more different. Davey, content with small-town life, is lean and athletic. Hazen, a city dweller, has brief, white hair, wears thick glasses and walks with the aid of a cane.
But the two seem to have bonded. Hazen noted that she is about the same age as Davey’s mother, who died four years before Hazen’s accident.
His arrival just as the accident occurred seemed to him to be destined, Davey said over lunch.
“I felt like I was supposed to be there, for some reason,” he said.
“Well, you knew what you were doing,” Hazen responded.
“Well, I knew I was going to attempt,” he answered.
When he very first eyed the car coming off the road, it looked like a Hollywood stunt trick, Davey said. He instantly commenced to plead that anyone in the car would be all right.
Hazen described the anxiety she had felt on the journey up with the Eicks as they neared the accident site, identified on the police report as a half-mile east of mile marker 71.
After lunch on Tuesday, the group traveled to the site. Highway sixty one has been improved considerably over two decades, Davey said, but traffic volume has enlargened significantly at the same time. The curve doesn’t seem to be as vapid as it once was, and the road seems to be slightly broader, they said. The tree Hazen’s vehicle hit almost certainly is gone; the area features fresh growth.
Then, as now, the speed limit is fifty five mph. Hazen said she would have had her cruise control set at fifty five when the accident occurred. Albeit within the limit, it would have been too rapid, Davey said.
Cruise control “was part of the problem,” Hazen said. “I was getting kind of hypnotized.”
“You needed to get out of the car,” Davey joked. “But this was a heck of a way to do it.”
Hazen said she realizes she very likely would have survived the accident had Davey not been there and acted so quickly. But without his prompt and knowledgeable help, she thinks her injuries might have been much worse and the quality of her life negatively affected. As it was, she recovered fully, albeit petite shards of glass continued emerging from her ear for years after the accident.
Back at the Bluefin Grille, Hazen had paid for lunch for the Eicks, Davey and herself.
“Thank you for lunch,” Davey told her.
“Thank you for life,” she responded.
“You can thank the Lord for that,” Davey answered. “He put us together.”
Accidental reunion: twenty one years after North Shore crash, woman meets her rescuer, WDAY
Accidental reunion: twenty one years after North Shore crash, woman meets her rescuer
TOFTE, Minn. — Marc Davey produced family pictures. Judith Hazen came with a binder packed with mementos from a previous occasion.
It was the sort of thing one might expect to see at a reunion of two people after more than twenty one years apart — but with a difference.
“Well I have to tell you, I don’t reminisce what you looked like,” Hazen told Davey.
The last time they had seen each other, Hazen was sprawled awkwardly across the driver’s seat of her wrecked one thousand nine hundred eighty eight Mercury Grand Marquis, her head sticking out the violated driver’s side window, shards of glass shredding her right ear. Davey, who had witnessed the accident on state Highway sixty one along Lake Superior’s North Shore a few miles west of Schroeder, had slipped into the passenger side of the vehicle. A military man with training in emergency situations, he was assessing Hazen’s condition, hoping to get her out of the smoking vehicle.
That sunny afternoon of May 15, 1996, Davey, then 30, had been driving to Silver Bay from his work at Lutsen Mountains to pick up his sons at daycare. Hazen, then fifty three and just out of seminary, had been driving up from the Twin Cities for a job interview at Zoar Lutheran Church in Tofte. She was almost there when her car left the road at a curve, flipped twice and slammed into a tree as the westbound Davey observed from his pickup truck.
“I can still see it,” Davey said this week. “Every time I go past there, I can see it.”
Davey, who was worried the vehicle might burst into flames, pulled Hazen out the passenger side and helped her get to safety. Davey then flagged down a passing white Toyota pickup truck. In an era when mobile phones were uncommon, Davey asked the occupants to stop at the nearby home of Bill and Marion McKeever to call for help.
An ambulance arrived, and paramedics took over Hazen’s care. After the sheriff came and took his information, Davey left, late to pick up his children.
Hazen spent that night in the emergency room at North Shore Hospital in Grand Marais but made it to her job interview the next afternoon. She got Davey’s name and sent him a “thank-you” letter a duo weeks later.
He meant to react, Davey said, but didn’t. She left behind that she’d sent the letter, left behind that she’d ever known the name of the man who came to her rescue.
That’s how it stood until last fall, when a class in the St. Paul senior citizen apartment where she lives left Hazen wanting to thank the person she considered an unsung hero from that gig two decades earlier.
With no idea who he was, Hazen contacted the Duluth News Tribune, which published a story last Oct. 30, a Sunday, describing the accident and seeking information about whether anyone knew who the good Samaritan was.
Davey called the newspaper the next day. Information was exchanged, and on Nov. 1, Davey and Hazen spent more than half an hour talking on the phone.
They kept in touch after that. Hazen sent him a copy of her Christmas letter, which included an account of her rediscovery of him. He called her at Christmas.
The two had not reunited face to face until Tuesday, Aug. 29, when they met for lunch at the Bluefin Grille in Tofte. Hazen, who is now seventy four and drives only brief distances, was brought by her friends Dick and Carol Eick of Crimson Wing, Minn. It was Hazen’s very first visit to the North Shore since 1996.
The 52-year-old Davey, a family man and outdoorsman who works at Northshore Mining in his hometown of Silver Bay, arrived after Hazen and her friends. The two embraced, then sat next to each other during lunch, talking permanently about their memories of the accident, their families and their lives.
On the surface, the two couldn’t be more different. Davey, content with small-town life, is lean and athletic. Hazen, a city dweller, has brief, white hair, wears thick glasses and walks with the aid of a cane.
But the two seem to have bonded. Hazen noted that she is about the same age as Davey’s mother, who died four years before Hazen’s accident.
His arrival just as the accident occurred seemed to him to be destined, Davey said over lunch.
“I felt like I was supposed to be there, for some reason,” he said.
“Well, you knew what you were doing,” Hazen responded.
“Well, I knew I was going to attempt,” he answered.
When he very first witnessed the car coming off the road, it looked like a Hollywood stunt trick, Davey said. He instantaneously began to beg that anyone in the car would be all right.
Hazen described the anxiety she had felt on the journey up with the Eicks as they neared the accident site, identified on the police report as a half-mile east of mile marker 71.
After lunch on Tuesday, the group traveled to the site. Highway sixty one has been improved considerably over two decades, Davey said, but traffic volume has enlargened significantly at the same time. The curve doesn’t seem to be as plane as it once was, and the road seems to be slightly broader, they said. The tree Hazen’s vehicle hit almost certainly is gone; the area features fresh growth.
Then, as now, the speed limit is fifty five mph. Hazen said she would have had her cruise control set at fifty five when the accident occurred. Albeit within the limit, it would have been too prompt, Davey said.
Cruise control “was part of the problem,” Hazen said. “I was getting kind of hypnotized.”
“You needed to get out of the car,” Davey joked. “But this was a heck of a way to do it.”
Hazen said she realizes she very likely would have survived the accident had Davey not been there and acted so quickly. But without his prompt and knowledgeable help, she thinks her injuries might have been much worse and the quality of her life negatively affected. As it was, she recovered fully, albeit puny shards of glass continued emerging from her ear for years after the accident.
Back at the Bluefin Grille, Hazen had paid for lunch for the Eicks, Davey and herself.
“Thank you for lunch,” Davey told her.
“Thank you for life,” she responded.
“You can thank the Lord for that,” Davey answered. “He put us together.”