Firefighter

[TastinGood]

Volunteer firefighter David Varnedore rushed to the scene of a car accident prepared to help strangers in need. Then he came across the body of his own son. And then the body of his elder daughter.


Varnedore's two children were among five youngsters killed Saturday night when a car on a curving road struck an all-terrain vehicle the kids had crowded onto during a birthday party. A sixth child was critically injured.

Amanda M. Troupe, 29, was charged Tuesday with vehicular homicide and drunken driving in connection with the accident, authorities said. Troupe also was charged with reckless driving and driving on the wrong side of the road in the accident, said State Patrol spokesman Gordy Wright.

When Varnedore got to the scene, his son Dustin, 11, was lying face down in a pool of blood. "There was no hope for him," Varnedore recalled Monday, gasping with emotion between every word.

A few feet away, Varnedore found his daughter, Kayla, 13. "My daughter was laying face up and I did CPR on her to no avail," said Varnedore, who lives only a mile away.

The other victims were Lindsay Joiner, 13 of Douglas; Courtney Arsenault, 10, of Alma; and the ATV's driver, Coranne Megan Nelson, 14. Another partygoer, Heather Bass, 13, was listed in critical condition Monday.

Residents of the rural area said the children had attended Nelson's birthday party and decided to celebrate afterward by going for a ride on her ATV.

The off-road vehicle was built for one adult rider, said Gordy Wright, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Public Safety. None of the youngsters was wearing a helmet and Nelson should not have been driving the vehicle on a public road.

"It's just an awful tragedy," said Mayor Max Lockwood. "All the families hope this leads to a better understanding of safety. The kids were in a rural neighborhood, and children just like to hop on those things and ride around in the country."

Varnedore returned to the scene Monday afternoon with his parents, Carol and David Varnedore Sr. About a dozen others gathered there to mourn the young victims.

Dots of orange paint, left by the accident investigators, traced the car's skid marks and blue flags marked the spots where bodies were found. Painted orange circles showed where the car hit the ATV and where key parts of the vehicles had landed.

"You see that spot of blood? That was my son," said the 30-year-old truck driver who became a volunteer firefighter when he was 16. "You see this spot of orange paint? That was my daughter."

Before hurrying home to console his wife and to be with their remaining child, a 2-year-old daughter, Varnedore said the mangled bodies he saw in the ditch made him throw up.

"I won't even tell you what I saw," he said.

The ditch and roadside were littered for about 75 yards with bits of clothing, including a blue and gray tennis shoe, a cloth ponytail holder, a baseball cap and the car's badly mangled front bumper.

The impact of the collision along the two-lane road knocked some candy the young victims had gotten at the party from their pockets and left it scattered along the road.

The accident occurred on a road that separates Coffee and Irwin counties, about 10 miles northwest of Douglas, officials said. The collision happened on a road bordered on one side by forest and the other by pasture.

Donna Reynolds, a safety specialist with the Georgia Farm Bureau, said she often sees children and adults riding ATVs on roads. "People are riding ATVs everywhere and people look at them as a toy," she said. "They are not toys. Period."

At West Coffee Middle School, which four of the children attended, counselors went into classrooms Monday to talk to students. The pupils wrote condolence cards to the families.

[Blazey]

I read that too TG..made me sick..i cant even begin to think how these families must feel..and my question was...where was the parent in charge of the party????..why did they let all those kids pile on an ATV and head off down the road.. [img]confused.gif[/img]

[SHATOUSHKA]

yeah.... i agree

and that is such a highly unfortunate accident...

while i'm sure vehicluar homicide for 5 children's
death isn't anything to laugh at....

good lord... what a tragedy

however, i will admit a slight cynicism for the
dumbass adult that didn't correct the stupid
kids for riding on the road...
but then again, i dunno anything about the area,
so there are alot of variables that i don't know.

still...
i can't imagine going to the scene of an accident
to find my two children dead....

shit... how terrible

[GravyTrain]

I guess what bugs me the most about the comments made thus far is that everything seems to be pointing fingers at the parents of the young kids. the article says that it was a rural community, every single day, all over the countrY (well at least the back roads of arkansas) kids get on atv's and drive all over the place.

yea, you can argue that the parents were irresponsible, but for crying out loud, why were they to think that anything different would happen? i don't really know what i'm saying

[SHATOUSHKA]

lol... kids... deer...
in arkansas, its all the same, eh, dj?

[img]tongue.gif[/img]

[imaslave4junior]

awww that was so sad [img]frown.gif[/img] made me wanna be sick [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img]

[Cyalaytr]

Just surprised a father after having to work on 2 of his own kids and they die from the hands of a Drunk Driver didnt kill her before the cops got there. Sorry not to fond of Drunk Drivers since I have been hit by one. But I agree where were the parents that let the kids on the road with the ATV? Birthday parties scare me. Look at Tommy and Pamela who had that kid drown in his pool at one.