Springfield Wednesday Newsletter - October 22, 2008

On October 11, 2008, our loved one Dennis Smith was on his way to a rifle match with the Eastern Nebraska Gun Club in Springfield, NE.  Smith won the Nebraska State Championship in High Power Rifle only weeks before, and was looking forward to another Saturday of target shooting with his friends.  At about 8:00 a.m., Smith was traveling South on Highway 50 towards Louisville when Erik Hughes approached in his vehicle traveling North on Highway 50.  As their vehicles were passing each other, Hughes made a last second decision to turn left onto Highway 31, failing to yield to Smith’s bright red vehicle.  Hughes’ Chevy S-10 Blazer impacted Smith’s small Chevy S-10 Xtreme pickup in the left front wheel and driver’s door, nearly head on.  Smith’s vehicle came to rest in the ditch south of Highway 31 and west of Highway 50, leaving him pinned in his vehicle.  Within minutes, a nurse and other onlookers arrived and administered life-saving first-aid to Smith and began to pray for his survival.  He was rescued 10 to 15 minutes after emergency equipment arrived on the scene utilizing the Jaws of Life and was then airlifted to Creighton Medical Center in critical condition with a severe brain injury.  Despite fighting bravely for 4 days, Dennis Smith passed away Wednesday morning at the age of 55, just one month shy of his 56^th birthday and 2 weeks prior to the due date of his daughter’sfirst child.  Among numerous citations Hughes was cited for failing to yield and DUI.

Many people have responded to our family’s tragedy on various websites.  Some have expressed sadness, confusion, memories of Dennis, and condolences for our family.  Others have expressed outrage over Hughes’ actions, or have demanded our family’s forgiveness and understanding of a “dumb kid’s stupid mistake”. 

As a family, we have this to say:  On October 11^th, our lives changed forever.  No words can adequately express the terrible fear that struck our hearts when we each received the phone call informing us with little detail of the accident, or the horror of seeing our father, husband, and friend lying in a hospital bed bleeding and comatose, with respirator tubes and a brain pressure monitor screwed into his skull.  No words can describe the sick feeling in our hearts and stomachs as we anxiously monitored his brain pressure, praying for it to go down, and praying for him to recover and be the amazing man we all know and love.  No words can truly express the sea of grief and despair that has surrounded us in the last moments of his life.  

Are we angry?  Yes, of course we are angry.  Accidents happen, but Erik Hughes getting into his vehicle in an impaired state was not an accident.  Because of this poor decision on Saturday morning, Dennis Smith, our entire family, and his countless friends have paid an indescribable price.  Anger is not Dennis’ legacy; he was a man who loved his family deeply and told us often how proud and thankful he was to be in our lives; a man who was immensely talented at anything he put his mind to; a man who believed in hard work, integrity, and responsibility; a man for whom fairness, decency, and kindness was a way of life; and, above all, a man who believed in living life to it’s fullest every day.

So many people will miss Dennis.  We are angry at the circumstances of our loss, but mostly we are just deeply saddened to not have him with us anymore.  We are grateful to God for all the time we did have with him.  We are also so thankful for the wonderful doctors and nurses at Creighton Medical Center, especially our nurse Kim, who was dedicated to caring not only for Dennis, but also for our family during this difficult time.  

As a Christian family, we will eventually be able to forgive Hughes for his actions; at the same time, we feel that Hughes must be held accountable for his actions to the absolute highest extent of the law.