BonnerSprings.com

Photo by Kevin Anderson

Emergency crews carry an injured passenger to be air lifted to KU Medical Center. A late Friday morning accident involving a 2002 Nissan and a pickup truck was at the intersection of Kansas Highway 32 and the entrance ramp to northbound K-7.

The site of a fatal traffic accident Friday was the same highway interchange for which the city of Bonner Springs had unsuccessfully requested a traffic light from the state two years ago.

Mark "Tony" Holmes, 18, a Bonner Springs High School senior, died in the accident when the vehicle he was riding in turned left heading east on Kansas Highway 32 to the ramp for northbound Kansas Highway 7 was hit by a westbound truck on K-32.

A stoplight was erected two years ago at the interchange for southbound K-7, just west of the accident's scene.

"We had originally asked KDOT to look at putting lights at both the ramps," said Bonner Springs City Manager John Helin, "and they only agreed to put that one in, and said the second one didn't warrant it. I don't know if that one accident (on Friday) changes things or not."

Kansas Department of Transportation records show that in the years between 2000 and 2006 a total of three injury accidents occurred at the spot where Holmes died. That compares to 29 injury accidents in the same years for the location just west of that interchange, where the ramp for southbound K-7 meets K-32. No fatal accidents occurred at either interchange in those years.

Helin said the city hadn't received any calls urging the installation of a stoplight at the northbound K-7 interchange on K-32.

"So I don't know whether we will be pursuing any action about it at this time," he said.

At 11:12 a.m. the Kansas Highway Patrol received a call for a wreck involving a 2002 Nissan passenger car and a 1997 Ford pickup truck.

Holmes, who was in the Nissan's passenger seat, died in the accident. Daniel Perkins, 17, the second passenger, sitting in the back seat, sustained life-threatening injuries and was transported by helicopter to Overland Park Regional Hospital. The driver, Chad Way, had injuries that were not life threatening and was taken to Kansas University Medical Center.

The Nissan was heading east on Kansas Highway 32, turning left toward the northbound exit for K-7, when the pickup truck, westbound on K-32, hit it.

None of the occupants of the Nissan were wearing seat belts.

The driver of the truck, Daniel Hernandez, 40, Bonner Springs, was injured and taken to Providence Medical Center. He was wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident.

A Kansas Highway Patrol officer on the scene said he suspected drugs were involved in the accident because he smelled marijuana in the Nissan.

An announcement made at Bonner Springs High School about the accident informed students that counseling was available.

A memorial vigil Friday night at the skate park at South Park brought out hundreds to mourn Holmes.

Holmes was featured in a Nov. 13, 2002, Chieftain article when he was a seventh-grader at Clark Middle School. In 2000, Holmes had survived a sometimes-fatal disease, Streptococcal Toxic Shock Syndrome. As a result, however, doctors were forced to amputate each of his legs below the knees because blood circulation there had stopped for an extended period of time.

An outpouring of community support flowed for Holmes during the recovery process with a benefit event, a Valentine's Day telegram fundraiser and other good-will gestures.

Holmes eventually learned to walk with prosthetics and he sometimes used a wheelchair when he got tired.

Holmes, 13 at the time, told the Chieftain his ordeal had taught him to take each day as it comes.

"Don't think ahead in life because you don't know what will happen," he said.

The driver of the vehicle, Chad Way, came home from the hospital Saturday, his mother, Dana Way said.

"He's doing fairly well," she said. "He's still in a lot of pain."

Way said Holmes was her son's best friend and that Chad remembers "bits and pieces of the accident."

"He's having a tough time of it," Way said.

The condition of Daniel Perkins, the other passenger in Chad Way's car, could not be verified by Overland Park Regional Medical Center, but Dana Way said he was still in the hospital and she didn't know his condition.