Amid the wreath and the cross with the colorful bows tied to it and the withered bouquets of flowers at the roadside memorial, the sunflower has not succumbed.
A fresh snowfall has covered the scattered debris from the accident and the deep, muddy rut will take years to fix itself. But the sunflower stands tall with vibrant, lemon-yellow petals radiating from its rough brown center perched high above on a periscope-like stem.
The temperature will hardly rise above 10 degrees in the northwest tip of Wisconsin where Lake Superior quietly reaches out its icy finger, but the sunflower keeps watch, guarding against death’s return.
According to the police report, the accident occurred at 9:20 a.m. Jan. 6 along U.S. Highway 2 just east of Iron River, Wis. It’s a stretch of road known locally as the highway of death because of frequent accidents and occasional fatalities.
Calah Matthias and Jessica Reed, basketball teammates at the University of Wisconsin-Superior and inseparable friends, were traveling eastbound on their way to Mellen, Wis., where they were planning to attend the funeral of the father of Sara Wohlgemuth, their teammate and friend.
About 40 miles into their trip and 4 miles east of Iron River, their Toyota Tercel hit a patch of slush and ice. Matthias, the driver, lost control, and the car spun into the oncoming lane of traffic, colliding on the front driver’s side with a semitrailer truck traveling westbound with a full load of cut timber.
The car hit the side guardrail and the truck pushed it about 100 feet before it spun two more times and slid off into the ditch. The truck jackknifed into the ditch, spilling its entire load.
Matthias died instantly. Reed was unconscious and hanging on to life when the first emergency medical crews arrived 15 minutes after the accident.
“When we first got there and saw the car, we knew it was bad,” said Gary Victorson, director of ambulance service for Iron River and one of the first on the scene that morning. “We knew we were working within that `golden hour.'”
As Reed was being extricated from the car’s crumpled remains and treated for a closed head injury, a life flight helicopter was sent to the scene. Thirty minutes after the accident, Reed was airlifted to St. Luke’s Regional Trauma Center in Duluth, where she was admitted in critical condition.
The truck driver, who was wearing a lap and shoulder harness that officials said may have saved his life, was treated and released from a hospital in Ashland, Wis., that same day.
Tragedy has no textbook. There are no courses offered in crisis management at UWS, no professors who can answer the inevitable question–Why?–for the 2,600 students who will return from winter break this week to news of the accident and Matthias’ death.
Things are quiet these days on the UWS campus in Superior, Wis., a town of 27,000 built by the shipping industry and just across Lake Superior Harbor from Duluth. Students have been gone since mid-December, leaving the classrooms dark and the student union empty. For the few who remained on campus–many of them athletes who stayed to train, practice or play–word of the tragedy spread quickly.
Just a few hours after the crash and in the middle of an afternoon practice, UWS women’s basketball coach Sandy Eilertsen received word of an accident east of Iron River. Matthias and Reed, whom she had excused from practice to attend the funeral, had been involved. Eilertsen immediately halted practice, told the players what she knew and scheduled a team meeting for later that night.
“We didn’t really know what was happening,” said Sheri Domitrovich, a starting forward for the Yellowjackets. “There were so many things to think about, losing a friend, a teammate. It was a lot to think about.”
That night, as Eilertsen relayed the information of Matthias’ death and Reed’s injuries to the assembled teammates, the region watched in horror as local television stations reported the story.
“It just looked like four wheels,” UWS Athletic Director Steve Nelson said of the TV footage. “I was shocked and scared that anyone could go through something like that. Obviously it shocked the whole athletic community.”
At their meeting Eilertsen’s players were shocked into silence, crying and hugging but saying little.
“What do you say?” the coach asked. “People have all these emotions and feelings. We just needed to be together, so that’s what we did. We’re trying to work everything out together as a team.”
The next day, the grieving process began for the university and its surrounding community.
“I found out when I was working at the student bookstore,” said Lindsey Johnson, a junior and former UWS athlete who played high school basketball against Matthias. “Every time you saw her she was always smiling and outgoing. I thought it was a shame. She was so young.”
UWS canceled women’s basketball games scheduled for Jan. 8 and Jan. 10 and called off all practices. Ten teammates and their coaches spent many hours talking, crying and trying to deal with the loss of a friend and teammate. At the Jan. 8 game against St. Benedict, the UWS women’s hockey team honored Matthias with 33 seconds of silence, acknowledging the uniform number she wore for the Yellowjackets. The men’s basketball team did likewise before its Saturday night game against UW-Eau Claire.
“It’s been very difficult for us,” men’s basketball coach Jeff Kaminsky said after Wednesday’s 66-63 upset of defending Division III champion UW-Platteville. “We’re a small school and a lot of our guys were very, very close to the two players. The events that occurred last week put winning and losing in perspective.”
On Monday an emotional memorial service was held at Matthias’ high school in Drummond, Wis., about 60 miles southeast of Superior. There were 500 people paying their respects, including many UWS athletes. Wohlgemuth and Eilertsen delivered moving tributes and other speakers recalled the young woman “who was always smiling.”
Back in Duluth, Reed was slowly improving at St. Luke’s. By Tuesday her condition had been upgraded to serious but stable, and the prognosis is for a full recovery. She may be able to play basketball again.
Visits to Reed’s bedside punctuated a tough week for her teammates.
“It comes and goes,” starting center Courtney Lane said. “One minute you’re OK and the next minute you think about it and it’s hard.”
Point guard Terri Olsen said: “You try to remember everything good, and then you wonder why it happened.”
The Yellowjackets had a game to play Wednesday night, their first since the accident, and they had to find a way to put the tragedy aside for two hours. But in the final seconds of their 76-55 win over UW-Platteville, tears came as their emotions bubbled over.
“We told the kids to go out and play tonight, and they did,” Eilertsen said. “They played together and they played for a cause. The thing they want everyone to know is that we may have only had eight suited up, but there were 14 people there.”
Matthias would have been proud. Basketball was an essential part of her life, a passion that drove her, and her teammates were struck by her commitment.
The day before the accident Matthias met with Eilertsen to discuss how she could improve her game. Eilertsen suggested she become more active on offense and not settle for three-point shots.
That night Matthias responded with the best game of her career. By the final horn Wednesday night, Matthias had 18 points despite the Yellowjackets’ 57-53 loss.
“She did all the things we talked about,” Eilertsen said. “She played a great all-around game.”
That night Matthias, Reed and a couple of other friends went out for pizza. They ended up at Matthias’ off-campus apartment, talking and hanging out until about midnight. Less than 10 hours later a patch of ice on a rural highway and a lumber truck interrupted and changed the lives of dozens of people. The grieving continues throughout Superior. The women’s game Wednesday marked something of a return to normalcy. The yellow jerseys of Matthias, Reed and Wohlgemuth, who was still at home, were draped over three chairs at the end of the bench. No other invoking of the last week’s events was made, per the players’ requests.
“We’ve gone through the memorial service and things have kind of settled down for the students,” Nelson said. “But we still have hills to climb when the rest of the students come back and when the springtime comes and we’re reminded of what happened.
“We’re going to do something to honor Calah, but we want to take our time in finding out what that may be. Our athletes are family here and we just won’t forget.”
