Emergency workers testify at Helm trial

Chaos.

Several responders to the grim head-on crash that killed five children used the same word Tuesday as they described what they saw on U.S. Highway 395 on Nov. 1, 2005.

Emergency crews and law enforcement officers testified in the trial of Clifford Helm, 58, accused of five counts of vehicular homicide and one count of vehicular assault in the accident that killed five children of Jeffrey and Caroline Schrock.

Spokane County Fire District 4 emergency medical technician Julie Clayton told a Spokane County Superior Court jury that dispatchers had told her the crash was serious.

When she arrived at the accident scene a few minutes later, “I saw chaos. It looked like a bomb had gone off,” Clayton said.

Clayton approached the Schrocks’ truck, which was upside down in the highway median and crushed. She said she found a child facedown outside the vehicle and determined she was dead.

As the bodies of four other Schrock children were removed from their father’s truck, Clayton said she and her partner wrapped them in blankets.

“We made sure they were safe and protected – not dishonored in any way,” she said.

Clayton said she was on the scene for nearly five hours. “I was there until I was told to go home,” she said.

Alita LaTurner, another Fire District 4 EMT, said she saw Clifford Helm in his truck with blood on his head.

She was directed to the Schrocks’ truck, where she helped with the children’s bodies.

She also saw firefighters forcing open the door of the Schrocks’ truck.

Jeffrey Schrock “popped out,” she said. “He had a 1,000-yard stare and glassy eyes. He didn’t know what was going on,” LaTurner said. Schrock was flown by helicopter to Sacred Heart Medical Center, where he was treated for multiple injuries.

Washington State Patrol Trooper John D. Smith, the first state trooper to arrive, said he talked briefly to Helm, who was “conscious and not remembering anything.”

When Smith referred to Helm as the driver who caused the accident, Helm’s lawyer, Carl Oreskovich, objected. Superior Court Judge Michael Price cut off that line of questioning from Deputy Prosecutor Clint Francis.

The trooper who found Helm’s cell phone in his battered truck after the accident also took the stand.

Detective Sgt. Ken Wade, supervisor of the WSP’s Criminal Investigations Unit in Spokane, said that after the medical examiner left the scene, he searched Helm’s truck and found a cell phone “in the open position” on the floor of the driver’s side.

Wade said that at the time he didn’t think the cell phone would have much value as evidence, and he left it in the truck. Later, the patrol’s Major Accident Team got a search warrant and inspected both vehicles.

The State Patrol investigation took 11 months, Wade told the jury.

The cell phone has become a central piece of evidence in the state’s effort to prove Helm was driving negligently.

In an opening statement Monday, Oreskovich told the jury the accident was caused by a fainting spell suffered by a coughing Helm. Oreskovich said Helm had a similar spell at his Deer Park home a few weeks after the crash.

Sprint records show Helm called his wife from his truck at 4:19 p.m., just before he collided with the Schrocks.

At 4:20 p.m., Helm’s wife, Sandy – who was driving behind her husband in a separate vehicle – placed a call to him, but it’s not known whether he received it, said Donna Hernandez of Sprint Nextel Communications in Overland Park, Kan., in her testimony.

At 4:22 p.m., Sandy Helm called 911, the records show.

Late Tuesday, the lawyers clashed over the prosecutor’s attempt to introduce the cell phone as evidence.

With 25 witnesses, the state’s case is expected to continue into next week. Jeffrey and Carolyn Schrock and Spokane County Medical Examiner Dr. Sally Aiken are scheduled to testify last. Then the defense team will present its case.