Too many people are grieving as a result of this accident on U.S. Highway 93 North.
All that’s clear are the consequences: two teenage cousins dead in one car; a young mother dead, her two sons and their
father badly hurt in the other.
Stephanie Nicole Parker-Shepard, 21, of Arlee, was dead at the scene of the 9 p.m. Saturday crash that occurred on the part of U.S. 93 where the road narrows from three lanes to two between Ravalli and Arlee, said Missoula Highway Patrol Trooper Terry Rosenbaum.
She was a passenger in a Honda traveling southbound on 93 when a northbound Hyundai crossed the center line and hit it head-on.
The driver of the Hyundai, 19-year-old Trevor Olson, and his 14-year-old cousin, Tanner, were killed. The Honda’s driver, Vincent Shepard, was taken by Life Flight to St. Patrick Hospital with serious injuries from the pelvis down, Rosenbaum said.
The Shepards’ two children were taken first to St. Pat’s and then to Harborview in Seattle. “They’re expected to be OK,” Rosenbaum said Tuesday. Shepard was listed in fair condition Tuesday at St. Pat’s.
Preliminary investigations show that neither alcohol nor drugs appears to have been a factor. In fact, one of the very few things known about the crash is that no one in either car was wearing a seatbelt.
Gwen Florio
(Image: Minlawyer.com)