Tragedy strikes close to home.

I am posting the article to show you, because when I saw my two older daughters faces yesterday, the pain they are in was so expressed on the lines there that I immediately asked them what had happened. When they related that one of their friends was killed and the other in a hospital in Las Vegas in a coma, I knew the accident scene I had passed that morning was what had happened to them.

I saw the lights of the DPS vehicles and the tow trucks at the scene. The paramedics truck was still there, but the air ambulance was not. The white 4x4 bronco I had admired on numerous occasions was laying in a mangled heap 20 feet from the side of the road. It was opposite the lane that the truck was originally traveling in, they were headed west and the truck was on the south side of the road.  The rear axle was sitting on the roadway 50 feet or more from where the vehicle came to rest. The patrolman were controlling traffic with a look that told me something really bad had happened here.

As we rolled by slowly, I noticed that the stout aftermarket cage that was installed in the four wheel drive was particularly undamaged, and despite the other obvious signs of a horrific impact and roll, the accident could easily have been walked away from.

They were not wearing their seat belts. They were ejected from the vehicle, one dying at the scene and one now in a coma in the trauma unit in Las Vegas. 16 years old and her life was snuffed out because a simple decision was made to not do what I am sure they both knew was the right thing.

What really hits close to home is the fact that my own oldest is sixteen, just like Allissa . My own daughter desperately wanted to be on the swim team. Just like Allissa . As we live in the same community outside of town, my own daughter would likely have gotten rides with Allissa to the swim practices. Just like Raina. My own daughter would have been in that vehicle. Would she have been wearing her seat belt? No. I can say without question that she would have been just like Allissa and Raina. I ache for the pain both of my girls feel at the tragic loss of Allissa and of Raina's life right now hanging by a thread. I cry for my girls pain, for the loss of a child to a parent, for the heartbreak of parents whose child is wounded so. I did not know these girls or their families, but this could so easily have been my own child. I am thankful now that we did not allow my daughter to join the swim team or get her license. Both decisions we considered at length and in the end did not do because of logistics more than any other reason. God bless the families and soothe the pain that this tragedy has given our community.

Girls were on their way to swim practice Tuesday morning

KINGMAN - A Kingman High School junior was killed and another student severely injured in an early morning car accident Tuesday.

The girls were on their way to swim practice at 4:55 a.m. when the accident occurred at milepost 69 on Route 66. According to the Department of Public Safety, the 1990 Ford Bronco, driven by 16-year-old Allissa Marie Buchanan, was headed west toward Kingman when it traveled off the road to the right. The vehicle then overcorrected to the left, at which point the rear of the Bronco struck the westbound guardrail. The vehicle then rolled over, ejecting both the driver and an occupant, 16-year-old Raina Gentry.

Buchanan was pronounced dead at the scene. Gentry was airlifted to Sunrise Medical Center in Las Vegas where she is in the Intensive Care Unit. Neither girl was wearing a seat belt, police said. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

Both girls are members of the Kingman High swim team. Their teammates learned of the accident as practice was ending. Coach Rick Wertman said the team of 35 boys and girls are very close.

"There is just sadness," he said. "An overwhelming sadness."

Wertman described Buchanan as "fun, vivacious and a real sweetheart."

"She was full of life and ready to embrace every bit of it," he said.

Wertman said Gentry is more reserved, "a little more introspective, very sharp and driven."

Kingman High Principal Pat Michelson said staff was briefed on the accident before classes Tuesday. Counselors will be on hand at the school for students.

A swim meet scheduled for Wednesday has been cancelled.