UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, November 14, 1995
5A
Accident on ice cuts geology trip short
Two vehicles carrying students slide on ice into ditch in Missouri
By Sarah Wiese
Kansan staff writer
Eight geology students and two geology professors who left Friday for a field trip to the St. Francois Mountains in Missouri got more excitement than they bargained for.
Their five-site itinerary was cut short after two of the group's four vehicles hit an isolated ice patch and ended up in ditches.
"There may have been ice on the road, but there must have been something in the air," said Larry McKenna, one of two assistant geology professors sponsoring the trip. "We were very, very lucky."
The 25 students, accompanied by the professors and two graduate students, were on a routine field trip to study unique exposed rock and mineral formations as part of GEOL 311, Mineralogy and Structure of the Earth, and GEOL 512, Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology.
After camping Friday night, the group set out in McKenna's 1990 Isuzu Trooper and three 15-passenger vans owned by the geology department for the first exploration site
Because they were traveling about 25-30 mph on dry, winding, asphalt roads in the mountains, an ice patch was something the drivers had expected, McKenna said.
McKenna's Trooper, which was
leading the caravan, popped over a hill and hit what he called black ice, meaning that it was undetectable by motorists.
"The ice was basically frictionless, so it limited the things you could do in the situation," McKenna said.
The vehicle slid to the left
The wild ride
Two geology professors and eight geology students were involved in two separate accidents on a routine road in the northwest of Mountainein in Southeast Missouri.
side of the road and spun around before ending up in the ditch, he said.
Early Saturday morning, the vehicles hit an isolated ice patch and careened into opposite ditches. No one was injured.
the ice patch but managed to slow down to 15 or 20 mph.
"That's the reason no one was hurt," Reiser said. "We didn't have enough momentum to flip completely over or run into the trees."
The van slid off the right side of the road and into the ditch before coming to rest on its side.
Scott Kleiner, Englewood, Colo.
senior and a van passenger, said the first thing the group did was make sure everyone was OK.
The other two vans dodged the ice patch. No one was injured in either accident. Both McKenna and Plank were wearing seat belts, and all eight students in the van were wearing seatbelts.
"It was something that was impossible to avoid," said Terry Plank, assistant geology professor and a passenger in the Trooper. "I was just waiting for it to end, really."
"In situations like this,you really find out the kind of character a group has."
Larry McKenna Assistant geology professor
Todd Reiser, Omaha, Neb., junior, was the front-seat passenger in the 1985 Dodge Van that was next in line. He said that the driver, Aaron Wunder, Hays senior, couldn't avoid
McKenna said he was glad the st udents remained calm and worked together after the accident.
"Before I could ask them to unload the van, they'd already organized themselves," he said.
"In situations like this, you really find out the kind of character a group has."
After a tow truck pulled the van from the ditch, it was able to be driven away. Plank said the group decided to make the best out of a bad situation and visited two sites Saturday, slept in a hotel and headed back to Lawrence the next day.
Anthony Walton, geology department chairman, said the damage to the van was being estimated and that the van would be repaired before field trips in the spring.
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