Keta Smith flew from the tumbling van onto the frozen median of an Oregon highway and struggled to her feet to find two of her friends close to death and others shocked and injured.
“Josh was in a ball, and I knew he wasn’t doing good,” Smith, 26, said through tears following an emotional Sunday service at the New Life Worship Center in Federal Heights.
Josh Pishcura, 20, and Taune Winter, 23, both of whom died in the crash, and Smith were among 16 young members of New Life whose van crashed Thursday as they drove to Portland, Ore.
The group had set out to raise money for community service programs.
The passenger van crashed near Baker City, Ore., on Interstate 84, rolling several times before coming to rest on its top.
Nine of the survivors came to the service at New Life, some in wheelchairs and others with neck braces and bandaged arms and legs.
Four remain hospitalized in Boise, Idaho, and at least two of them were listed in critical condition Sunday.
One other was still in Idaho after being released from the hospital.
“Our hearts are still in Boise,” pastor Bo Sosa told the congregation.
After the service, Smith and other survivors described the wreck.
The group made a brief rest stop in Baker City before Nicole Byrd, 25, guided the van back onto the rain-slicked highway.
Byrd said she set the van on cruise control as snow started swirling on the side of the road.
Moments later, the church van began to wobble, then tumble.
With the vehicle resting on its roof, Byrd could hear gasoline dripping as she undid the seat belt that held her suspended in the air.
She fought back tears as she described crawling from the van and seeing her friends, 13 of whom were ejected, scattered about.
“I wish I could take everyone’s pain,” said Byrd, whose arm was injured in the wreck.
A bone in Javaar Howard’s neck was broken in the accident, and he wore a neck brace at the service.
“It happened so fast, it seemed like a nightmare,” the Denver native said.
Smith said she remembers seeing a dazed Howard walking around the accident site singing the name “Jesus.”
Two men who stopped to help called 911, and one of them helped to pull someone who remained in the van out, she said.
State patrol officers and ambulances arrived, and Smith got into an ambulance with Pishcura, who was nicknamed J.P.
“I kept saying breathe J.P., breathe,” she said. I just said, ‘God, breathe life into his body.’ He took three deep breaths slowly, and I said, ‘He’s not breathing.’ I held J.P.s hand; I just knew he was with the Lord.”
Later, at a hospital in Oregon, she was told that he had died. Winter died later.
Lavan Sayed, 24, said Winter “was a joy,” a friend who loved to buy gifts for others.
Pischura and Winter “were the best of the best,” said Jake Ishmael, head of the Masters Commission Ministry, of which the accident victims were members.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
