The first weekend of the new year left much of Rockbridge County covered with snow and ice.

Many volunteer members of area fire departments and rescue squads, and those professionals involved in the towing and medical professions, had been on a state of high alert in anticipation of the predicaments that a combination of Saturday night, treacherous weather conditions and human behavior can bring.

As Sunday morning broke, many were still immersed in well deserved sleep. Lexington Lifesaving and First Aid Crew members Brad Zollman and Troy Potter were asleep at their crew building. Tom Raisbeck was sleeping at the Natural Bridge Volunteer Fire Department headquarters. Glasgow Rescue Squad Captain Damon Woody was trying to grab a couple of extra minutes of sleep. Lexington firefighter Robert Foresman had been home for 15 minutes after spending the night sleeping at the firehouse. Ronnie Slough was at the Buena Vista Rescue Squad building, a place where he had spent hundreds of hours during the past 30 years. Trent Roberts of Patient Transport Service was claiming a last few fitful minutes of shuteye. Bobby Berkstresser of Lee Hi Travel Plaza was just about to hear his alarm clock. Dr. Tony Schmieg had just begun his shift as the attending physician in the Stonewall Jackson Hospital emergency room. Heather Pelter, Brad Zollman's sister. had just begun her shift as a dispatcher at the central dispatch center in Buena Vista.

Mary Wood, a veteran of 23 years of dispatch service, was alongside Pelter at central dispatch headquarters as the 8:15 a.m. call arrived that would bring all these folks together in a way they will never forget.

The tones and the anxious voices of state troopers blaring through area scanners quickly grabbed the attention of experienced rescue and fire workers. They knew all about mile markers 184 and 185, which frame the Buffalo Creek bridge, a place they have long feared silently for its major accident potential.

Interstate 81 's Buffalo Creek bridge was hidden in a dense bank of fog that Sunday morning as many holiday travelers made their homeward journeys, and tractor-trailers pounded down the highway to somewhere delivering something that somebody wanted as soon as possible.

In a matter of seconds, that quick but orderly traffic train was derailed, leaving a ghastly scene of twisted metal, overturned trucks, runaway cargo, spilled diesel fuel and gasoline, and crushed passenger vehicles, completely blocking the interstate's busy northbound lane.

This was a situation that would clearly have to be approached from both sides of the scene. This was a situation that would tax all the training and abilities of those who so quietly protect all of our lives and property from unexpected disaster.

Almost before the last wheel of an upturned vehicle had stopped spinning. an army of volunteers and professionals had begun to mobilize their efforts to deal with a situation they had never imagined. Sleep, restless or otherwise, was brought to a sudden end. A rescue worker's freshly brewed cup of coffee would have to wait. Robert Foresman's brief visit home would end. Brad Zollman in Lexington, Damon Woody in Glasgow and Tom Raisbeck in Natural Bridge were blasted from their beds by the familiar wailing tones emitting from their pagers and the calm voices of central dispatch letting them know it was time to move and move quickly.

None of them knew exactly what to expect, but they soon heard from fellow members who had been listening to on-site state police transmissions on their scanners that there had been an accident a very, very bad accident near the Buffalo Creek bridge.

The central dispatch airwaves crackled with voices so calm one finds it hard to imagine those talking had any idea what awaited them on the fog-shrouded interstate. What equipment would they need? Would there be people trapped or pinned in their vehicles? Would their rescue vehicles travel safely over ice-covered highways? Would they have enough people? Would they have enough supplies? Would there be other squads and companies to cover the territories they were vacating? Would their skills hold up under such heavy pressure? Would they be up to the task?

Zollman and Troy Potter of the Lexington rescue squad and Woody and Raisbeck of the Glasgow squad and Natural Bridge fire department, respectively, arrived at opposite ends of the disaster site almost simultaneously, though none knew initially that there were others like them on the opposite side of the twisted metal and hissing radiators. Those coming from Lexington had to cross over at mile marker 185 and come south down the northbound lane, while those coming from the south had to deal with impatient drivers who had already reversed themselves and were driving the wrong way back up the interstate. The state police had quickly stopped northbound traffic to the south of the accident, but they could do nothing about driver impatience and indifference.

During the time all the rescue squads and fire departments from Glasgow, Natural Bridge, Lexington and Buena Vista were being mobilized there were two more accidents on the interstate, one at mile marker 204 and the other at mile marker 180, just four miles away from the big one. Other county crews and a crew from Buchanan, were dispatched to deal with those accidents as those headed for mile marker 184 heard from the first to arrive on the scene. They steeled themselves to what they were about to encounter.

Almost before the last wheel of an upturned vehicle had stopped spinning, an army of volunteers and professionals had begun to mobilize.

Zollman and Potter, who approached the murky scene from the north, and Woody and Raisbeck, who approached from the south, were stunned by what they saw. The most violent of the wreckage and severe of the human injuries were hidden from their view, squeezed between two truck trailers blocking the 23 feet, six inches width of highly traveled pavement.

Zollman and Potter grabbed what triage tags they had and their clip boards and started to check the condition of those injured in the metallic melee. First, they checked on the condition of the two occupants of the MGM truck, which lay on its right side on the right shoulder of the road. On their way to check on Trooper C.S. Seelke, who was in his crushed state police car, they noticed that the driver of the Cal-Ark truck had been thrown from his vehicle and was dead. Knowing there was nothing they could do for him, they continued to move among the vehicles.

Woody and other members of the Glasgow squad and Natural Bridge Fire Department had begun the same process from the other side of the twisted metal.

As Woody began to make a full survey of the scene, fellow Glasgow squad member Larry Mayo began the trek with Woody, but then stopped and stayed on the interstate's left-hand shoulder with the badly damaged cab of the Celadon truck. The Celadon cab had been sheered from its trailer, which came to a stop blocking the highway. The driver of the truck was out, but he let Mayo know that his wife and three children were still trapped in the overturned cab. Mayo started his attempts to extricate the trapped foursome.

Woody, who had still not seen the "ground zero" between the parallel trailers blocking the road, moved south and checked the occupants of the Ford pickup, Toyota and the green Dodge van. He continued around the van and to the right of the Freightliner truck, which is when he was met with the ghastly sight of a white Lumina and green Tahoe crushed between the two trailers.

The Celadon trailer had been ripped open and was balanced precariously on the front ends of the Lumina and Tahoe. The vehicles were so compressed that he went to the front of the Celadon trailer to see if the front ends of the two vehicles were protruding out the other side. He knew that the occupants of those vehicles could be in serious trouble.

Continuing up the hill, Woody met up with Zollman, Potter, Lexington Fire Chief Chad Conner and Lexington first assistant chief Foresman. They were in radio contact with all the other rescue units from Lexington and Buena Vista that were on their way to the scene. After crawling under the trailer on top of the Tahoe and Lumina, they knew they faced difficult extrications of those pinned inside the Tahoe and Lumina. They made sure that the Buena Vista squad's Ronnie Slough, a certified trainer and expert in these types of extrications, was on his way with other Buena Vista squad members.

One wrecker from Lee Hi had been dispatched to the scene after the initial two-vehicle accident, but now the call went back to Lee Hi that all they had, both equipment and manpower, would be needed. Lee Hi owner Bobby Berkstresser soon arrived on the scene and conferred with the emergency crew members as to how he could help. He told them he had multiple tow trucks, wreckers, dump trucks and personnel on the way. They knew the state police had also called in Hugh's Towing Service from Troutville to assist on the south side of the accident.

Members from the Lexington and Natural Bridge fire departments on the scene immediately addressed the possibilities of fire because of the large amounts of diesel fuel, gasoline and other flammable materials that had been ejected from various vehicles.

In the midst of unimaginable devastation, the leaders of each of the squads, departments and towing companies put their heads together and quickly discussed the manner in which the wreck had to be approached. By this time, additional rescue units from Lexington, Buena Vista and Glasgow were on hand, as well as Lifeguard 10 and Pegasus, helicopters that had flown in from Roanoke Memorial and the University of Virginia Medical Center, respectively.

Responsibilities were dispersed, with some rescuers being primarily responsible for containing the fire threat and others concentrating on the removal, care, packaging and delivery of patients to Stonewall Jackson Hospital or one of the two waiting medical helicopters.

All the rescue and fire workers on the scene were, first and foremost, concerned with their own safety in the midst of a situation fraught with threats of harm. Extrication experts approached the Lumina and Tahoe but quickly reconsidered because of the threat from the Celadon trailer which was off the ground and stretched across the two crushed vehicles. Some cargo had spilled from the broken frame of what had been a trailer, but much remained inside the shattered box. They discussed the situation with Berkstresser, and realized they would have to unload the cargo from the trailer and than a crane would need to be brought into place to lift and stabilize the Celadon trailer, so that the extricators could get to the victims pinned in the Tahoe and Lumina.

Zollman and Potter, who approached the murky scene from the north, and Woody and Raisbeck, who approached from the south, were stunned by what they saw.

Meanwhile, area rescue squad members worked hand in hand to treat the injured. The four who had been trapped in the mangled Celadon cab had been extricated, but quick medical attention was necessary. Lexington squad members worked feverishly on a badly injured boy and that hustled him to the Stonewall Jackson Hospital emergency room. They continued working on victims, starting with the most seriously injured and working back to those less severely injured.

The Lexington Lifesaving and First Aid Crew, aided by all available volunteers on the scene, conducted on-site treatment and preparation for 15 patients who were delivered to Stonewall Jackson and to the more seriously injured who were airlifted directly from the scene. Lexington squad members would arrive at the emergency room in one of their vehicles and leave in another that had been unloaded to return to the scene. They also helped to keep the flow of necessary medical supplies and things such as backboards and neck collars going to the scene.

Several truck drivers involved in the accident complained of back and neck pain, but, nonetheless, insisted on assisting the rescuers and not having their injuries treated until the more severely injured had been removed from the scene.

County emergency officials had arrived on the scene and worked in concert with rescue and fire volunteers, the state police, the Natural Bridge Hotel and the Natural Bridge Volunteer Fire Department and Auxiliary to establish transportation for the uninjured to food and shelter.

The state police, who had stopped traffic on the south side of the Buffalo Creek bridge earlier that morning so that no more vehicles would plow through the fog to disaster, worked with the Virginia Department of Transportation and volunteers from the South River, Kerrs Creek and Rockbridge Baths fire departments to reroute traffic from the interstate by various roads reducing the tremendous stress at the wreck scene.

Having assessed that there were four people pinned in the Tahoe and at least three in the Lumina rescue workers trained in vehicle rescue turned all their attention to "ground zero." Lee Hi workers dismantled and removed the guard rail on the right side of the highway so that necessary equipment could get closer to the scene. Hugh's Wrecking and Danny Young of Natural Bridge Exxon, in concert with Lee Hi, first pulled the Star truck back away from the wreckage. They followed by picking and removing the Ford pickup, the Toyota and the green Dodge vans their positions at rest against the Freightliner trailer. As both the Tahoe and Lumina had been forced into a 'V'-shape by the impact from front and rear, it was important to pull the Freightliner trailer away from their rears. As this occurred, Lee Hi hooked a cable to the Tahoe to pull down on the rear of the vehicle to flatten the frame out a bit so extricators could make room to work.

There was still the problem of the teetering Celadon trailer. Lee Hi workers got in the trailer and carefully handed the cargo of boxed clothes to workers on the ground, who carried them to the side of the road. then, straps attached to Lee Hi's crane were put around the trailer and Chains were attached to the trailer and a wrecker. Slowly, the Celadon trailer was lifted a few feet. It wanted to slide away, but Lee Hi workers quickly stabilized it.

Two teams of experts quickly went to work on the Tahoe and Lumina. It was painstaking work, requiring all their knowledge and skill. They used Hurst tools, air hammers, air chisels, O-cutters, spreaders anti rams to work inch by inch through the mangled metal and plastic to extricate the surviving two of four passengers from the Lumina and the surviving three of four passengers from the Tahoe. It took over two hours to get the first passengers out of the two vehicles and nearly six hours to extract the final passengers. The last body was removed from the scene around l2:30 p.m.

At that point, exhausted rescue and fire workers had to reclaim their equipment as it had all been mixed together during the rescue effort. Natural Bridge Exxon, Lee Hi, Hugh's Towing and Moore's Wrecker Service, which had all been critical to the rescue effort, now had to contend with the cleanup. The shattered remains of what had been trucks and passenger vehicles had to be picked up and hauled away. Truck cargo, including furniture, clothes and lemons, had to be picked up and carried to storage facilities so it could eventually be reclaimed by its owners.

All this had to be done before a single lane of northbound 81 would be reopened late Sunday night. It took the rescue squads and fire departments hours and hours to restock and clean their vehicles. Lee Hi employees spent all day Monday and most of Tuesday continuing to carry away debris and make it possible for both lanes to reopen.