‘We are the lucky ones’: Couple walks away from Kansas crash that killed eight, injured dozens

Robert “Bob” Rybak and Patty Dowd Schmitz came screeching to a halt between a semi and a car on the side of the road on I-70.

The Ohio couple had already driven through a couple of quick blackouts from the dust storm that was whipping across Kansas on Friday afternoon when they hit a third one on I-70 near Goodland.

Each lasted just seconds. The third one cleared just in time.

“That’s when that grace of God light shined through, showed us what was in front of us and I maneuvered like I did,” Rybak said.

Rybak and Schmitz both thought they were lucky, that they nearly escaped death. Then the first vehicle hit them, then another and another. Each time, they thought it was their last moment.

Eight people died and dozens were injured in the 71-vehicle accident Friday afternoon.

“We are the lucky ones,” Schmitz said. “The fact that we’re alive and we were able to basically walk away from what should have been a fatal accident. I mean, we’re just so lucky and grateful because so many people weren’t that lucky.”

The two were still staying at a hotel in Goodland on Saturday, hoping to get some items from their vehicle once the highway is cleared, then rent a car and make their way home. They were driving back on a route they had taken many times after staying in a cabin they frequented in Colorado.

“We’re still hyped on adrenaline,” Rybak said in a phone interview. “We’re still trying to process it all. We’re grateful to be alive.”

Schmitz had a hoarse voice from all the screaming.

Headed home

Schmitz had been tracking the weather moving across the country before they left Colorado around 10 a.m. She had concerns about the potential for a blizzard on part of her drive; she was not suspecting the wind to cause the harm that it did.

The Kansas Highway Patrol said the accidents were reported around 3:22 p.m. The highest wind in Goodland was a 56-mph gust at 3:25 p.m., according to Kansas Mesonet.

They saw two semis blocking each lane of traffic and a white car partly on the road and partly in the median just in time. But just seconds later, they and their dog Ginger were jarred forward when their vehicle was rear-ended.

Then they were hit again, knocking the car forward and turning them.

Rybak told Schmitz they had to get out. They had to make a run for it.

Then they were hit again.

“All you kept hearing was the boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,” he said. “Each time we heard the boom and got hit, we were getting tossed around.”

Rybak fought to get his door open. Schmitz’s side wasn’t able to be opened. She handed him Ginger, who squirmed out of his arms and started running.

He couldn’t see, but he heard another boom. He knew their SUV has been hit again.

“And at that point, I thought my girlfriend was dead, so I started screaming at the top of my lungs,” the 54-year-old said.

Schmitz was crawling across the middle console when she saw it again. She, too, thought each hit was the end. She tore her pants, had some bruising and would eventually feel the whiplash of four collisions.

She grabbed Rybak’s phone, her purse and the dog’s leash.

The 57-year-old said she shouted, “Oh my God, Oh my God, oh my God,” from the second she saw the semis until she found Rybak, who was able to get their dog. The leash kept Ginger from running off.

Rybak contemplated his decision to get out of the vehicle.

“Just running on adrenaline and trying to do the best you can to literally survive,” he said. They could barely see and didn’t know where to go. “The best way to describe it is a war zone or an apocalypse … You couldn’t see, you’re wandering aimlessly. You don’t know if something’s gonna hit you.”

Schmitz thought about Rybak’s struggle with asthma and had them duck behind a vehicle. Someone was inside calling 911.

They could hear people screaming for help.

Help from a stranger

They went to another car and found a younger couple, with the woman distraught and the man seriously injured. They tried to calm her and help her call 911.

Then a guy walked up to them and told them they needed to get back to their car. They told him that wasn’t an option, so he put them in the vehicle with his wife.

“They were so kind and gracious,” she said. “I kind of think they saved our lives.”

The two later found out that the couple’s names were Ira Ibbotson and Amanda Ford-Ibbotson, a husband and wife driving separately from Colorado back to their home in Iowa. They had been helping a friend move.

Ira Ibbotson was in the lead vehicle when he locked up the brakes and went into the median to avoid the semis he saw after a quick flash of darkness in the dust storm.

Amanda Ford-Ibbotson followed. She said the first two flashes of dust were quick and easier to see through; the third one wasn’t.

They got out and tried to help people. They couldn’t see much but could hear the crunch of metal and glass from the wrecks that continued to happen.

Ira Ibbotson was coming back to help the woman and man, whom he believed to be a couple in their 20s, after sending his wife to her vehicle to move away from danger. The 44-year-old stayed with the woman until first responders arrived.

He would sometimes duck behind a vehicle to clean the dirt out of his eyes. His glasses got scratched from the blowing dust.

Meanwhile, Amanda Ford-Ibbotson, Schmitz and Rybak and the dog watched as the storm intensified.

“It would wane and then build up again,” Ford-Ibbotson said. “But there was never a clear moment in it.”

They stayed there for a couple of hours, watching as first responders marked vehicles with how many people were in them. The responders would periodically check on them.

“You watch things like that on the news and you’re like, ‘Man, how does that happen?”’ she said. “When you are in it, it’s just a split second. It’s just decision making on the fly.”

At one point, Schmitz and Rybak got permission from an officer to go and try to grab whatever they could from their vehicle. But as the officer brought them close, another officer told them they couldn’t go.

Schmitz said she heard the officer tell the other one that someone was dead in the truck that was on top of the back of their vehicle. Once they got close, they also saw that their vehicle was sandwiched between multiple vehicles and just feet from a semi on one side and semi hauling a propane tank on the other side.

Amanda Ford-Ibbotson and Ira Ibbotson gave them a ride back to the hotel in Goodland. All four of them said that after driving away, it was like the dust storm was much more intense there than anywhere else.

The accident was reported at milepost 28 in Sherman County. I-70 was reopened in that area Saturday evening, the Kansas Department of Transportation said in a 7 p.m. news release.