Wednesday evening at 5:30 our time, 7:30 Ryan's time; Ry called to find out his pin number as he had lost his wallet recently and needed to get some money out of the ATM.  I told him we were going to eat seafood and he was so jealous and I reassured him that we would take him when he got home.  He had airline tickets to come home in three weeks, when his sister Stacey and her new baby Suzannah would be coming home also.  We were excited about all getting together.  He hadn't seen Suzannah yet and Stace was anxious to see Ry with her.  He always loved little kids and was so good with them.  We had a quick but good conversation which he ended as he always ended our conversations, with, "I love you Mom, tell Pops I love him too."

He sounded upbeat and happy.   

 

 

Jason called him early Thursday morning, 2 May 2002, around 1:30 AM, asking Ryan  to come pick him up where he was babysitting for an enlisted guy and his wife.  Ry and Terrence went to get Jason.  They stopped at a Circle K and got hot dogs, water and a candy bar.  They drove about 1/2 mile, in town, in a neighborhood where the speed limit was 35.  The police estimate that Ry was going about 45 MPH when he topped a little rise and veered left, overcompensated by jerking the wheel to the right.  The car went out of control at that point and slid into a concrete set of three little steps which caught his front driver's wheel flipping the car over, side to side, and it came to rest on the passenger's side.  Terrence blacked out a minute and when he came to, he said Ry was on top of him.  He tried to drag Ry out but couldn't so he jumped out and started yelling for help.  The EMTs were there within 10 minutes and they said Ry was dead when they got there.  They told us that he probably died the instant the car hit the steps as the cause of death was severe head trauma to the left temple area.  They said there wasn't hardly any bleeding.  They said that by law they have to do CPR until someone is pronounced dead by a physician so they started CPR on the way to the hospital in the ambulance.  They said he didn't look bruised or anything until they started CPR, which caused the blood to start flowing again and the scratches and cuts and a few bruises started to show up.  We take great comfort in knowing that he probably died instantly and didn't suffer.  Terrence didn't have any real injuries.  We are so thankful for that.  We believe that Ry probably padded Terrence's blows as the car rolled, as the impact seemed to throw them both towards the driver's side.  We think Ry's head hit into the side panel between the windows.  We are so thankful that Terrence is alright.  Ry would not have been able to live with the fact that he had caused a friend to be hurt or killed.  It was a gift that Terrence wasn't hurt.  Neither of the guys had their seatbelts on  which was a surprise.  We have always done that by habit and Ry used to make sure his friends did too.  Those are the facts that we have been able to gather.  Ry was going to transfer back to Harding University, a Christian College in August.  I think he knew that Cameron wasn't good for him.  He was wasting his life there.  We feel like we were so close to getting him back on the right track.