Heather Crosby

Heather Crosby sat on the balcony of her family’s condo on an early fall day in 2024 and enjoyed the light breeze and late-morning sunlight that shimmered across the waters of the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. 

“We’re making it,” she said when asked how she and her family are doing. “You have to, you know? If we stay in one spot, then we let that event define us, and I refuse to let that happen.” 

That event, as she referred to it, took place on the day before Thanksgiving 2021. It was late in the evening and Heather and her family were on the way from their home in Crystal City, Missouri, near St. Louis, to her sister’s home just outside of Dallas. Heather was driving the family’s 2004 Monarch, a Class A motorhome, with her husband, David, riding shotgun and her two sons, Tristan and Canyon Conrad, in the back. 

They had just gone through Little Rock and had decided to find an RV park so they could spend the night when they came into a construction zone on Interstate 30 in Benton, Arkansas. The traffic merged into one lane and came to a stop, so Heather and David were having a conversation while waiting for things to start moving again. Then, with almost no warning, things moved all-too-fast.

“All of the sudden I hear this loud noise, like an explosion,” Heather said. “It was worse than a transformer exploding next to you. I’ve never been in a war zone, but that’s the image that your mind drudges up. My stomach just dropped and I kind of knew, call it that mamma instinct, that there was an impact behind us.”

Heather took a quick glance into her side mirror and saw the lights of the 18-wheeler behind them coming “hot and fast” into the back of their RV, pushing them into the 18-wheeler in front of them and crushing their vehicle like a tin can under the boot of an angry teenager. 

The truck behind them, it was later learned, had been hit from behind by loaded 2021 Freightliner driven by Matthew Dakus that was owned by R&L Global Logistics. Data from the tractor showed it was traveling 69 miles per hour at impact and that Dakus never hit the brakes. 

Class A RVs like the one Heather was driving are built on platforms similar to a bus. They are typically the longest, widest, tallest, and heaviest motorhomes, stretching around 30-feet in length and weighing more than 25,000 pounds. 

“If we had been in anything smaller than a Class A, I don’t know how it would have been physically possible to have survived,” she said. “As it was, the fact that we survived was God’s hand. It was a miracle.”

When the world stood still after the wreck, Heather realized she couldn’t move so she began assessing their situation rather than focusing on her pain. She could see David in her peripheral vision. He had cuts, bruises, and injuries to his neck and back, but could move. She also could hear Tristan, then 21, talking behind her. He had suffered a blow to the head along with several cuts and bruises, but also was moving. There was no sign of Canyon, however.

Canyon, 19 and autistic, had gone to rest in the bedroom at the back of the RV just before the wreck occurred, so Heather frantically called for someone to check on him. The impact had thrown the young man off the bed just before a large television mounted on the wall fell on the spot where he had been laying. He had suffered a blow to his head, but otherwise he was not severely injured physically. Because of his autism, however, Heather was worried about how he would react to the chaos on the highway.

“I knew this was going to be traumatic for him, and he was going to have to be able to process it,” Heather said. “If he was able, he would want to pace around and flap and everything else.”

David got Canyon safely out and took care of him, while Heather told Tristan to call 911 and to let the first responders know she was trapped in the RV.

“No, Mom,” he said. “You’ve got to get out. I’ll lift this up.” 

But there was nothing he could do to free her. Heather was so tightly crushed into the cab that the only thing she could freely move was her right arm. The gas and brake pedals had shot through her right leg, bones in her left arm were broken, and the dashboard had pushed into her ribs and lifted her off the seat so that she was suspended and struggling to breathe.

“I’m not claustrophobic, but it was very much a situation where I didn’t know what my condition was going to be,” she said. “There was a lot of prayer. Once I had finished giving out orders to everyone and until the responders got there, it was basically me and God. I was like, ‘Okay, so is this it? Am I going to walk away from this? Am I going to live? Am I going to die? If I don’t live, what’s going to happen with the kids? What’s going to happen with my husband?’”

The first responders arrived and immediately went to work sawing her free while trying not to add to her injuries. 

“Are you amputating my leg?” she asked, as Tristan stood behind her watching and listening.

“You’re going to be alright,” was all she was told.

Later, she was told their saw blades never touched her leg, but she recalls two distinct sensations of pain in her leg as they cut through the gas and brake pedals. She also remembers the embarrassment of losing control of her bladder.

“There was one responder who was responsible for the team that was working underneath me and who was also trying to keep me calm,” Heather said. “I remember telling him, ‘I’m so sorry. I am peeing on them. I just peed my pants. I am peeing on them!’ He told me it was OK, and I’m like, ‘No, it’s not alright. You’re trying to save my life, and I’m peeing on you!’”

As they continued to work, Heather turned her head and bit into her seatbelt while trying to mentally process her condition. And she listened as the responders discussed their options for getting her free from the dashboard. Eventually, they used their equipment to prop the dashboard off her. 

“Not only could I suddenly take a breath and actually use my lungs again,” she said, “but I fell down into my seat. I had not even realized that I had been suspended.”

Heather was taken to a nearby hospital and eventually would undergo so many surgeries on her leg, arm and abdomen that she lost count of them. But she remembers one of her first visitors was an attorney with the Oliver Law Firm. David, Heather’s husband, practices family law in Missouri and one of his friends had recommended the Oliver Law Firm after hearing about the family’s tragedy.

“I think it was a very pleasant meeting,” she said, “although I honestly don’t remember a whole lot about it.”

The Crosbys ended up hiring the Oliver Law Firm, and Sach Oliver and his team handled the family’s negligence case against Dakus, his wife, Sharon Dakus, and R&L. 

“The choice of attorney is not a decision to be made lightly,” Heather said, “but my advice simply would be to go with Sach. My goodness, I was so pleased with how attentive everyone in the law firm is. And not to push my beliefs onto anyone, but for me, the most wonderful thing was that this was a faithful law firm. This was a team that prayed for us and with us.”

Heather was impressed that Sach and his team genuinely wanted to know about her family’s hopes and dreams and not just their “complaints, whines, and grievances.” Attorneys and staff members regularly called to see how the family was doing, and she said it never felt like they were checking off something on a to-do list. They were professional, but the conversations were personable and authentic.

“I remember Sach saying when we were just starting out that by the time this case was said and done, he wanted us to feel like we were just old friends or family sitting around the table chatting,” Heather said. “And he really accomplished that. I mean, I miss them, and I think that says a lot. I miss getting phone calls from Brenda (Estrada-Brown). I miss chatting with Geoff (Hamby) and Ryan (Scott) and Sach and laughing with them. I know I’m leaving out names. I heard from Jessica (Sallee) and Suzi(Vermillion) and Rod (Easley). Pretty much everyone there.”

In addition to the relational trust the family established with the firm, Heather was struck by their skills and expertise, and she said their confidence spilled over to her because every step in the process was so well explained and all of the questions she and David had were clearly answered.

When it came time for the trial in September 2024, she was ready and knew Sach and his team was ready. But around 9 p.m. on the night before they were set to select a jury, the defendants agreed to a settlement. This was both a relief and a disappointment for Heather.

For one thing, she said she felt like the defense team had been extremely “rude” throughout the process and part of her wanted to “go in there and stand tall in front of them” and let them know she was “a human being not a doormat.” And the other regret, she said, was not being able to hear Sach’s opening statement and seeing all the creative ways he and his team had put together presentations for the case.

Ultimately, however, she just wanted a fair and just result, and she said that’s exactly what they got. 

“It wasn’t about revenge,” she said. “And I’m not about making people lose their jobs. I’m not. I’m still struggling with my anger for (the driver). God and I still gotta work on that. But he’s still just a man, you know, and we all make mistakes.”

Heather, who runs a non-profit that offers after-school programs in her community, said her attitude leading up to the potential trial and eventual settlement was that “God was going to do whatever God was going to do in this.”

“Whatever the outcome,” she said, “I knew it was whatever God intended it to be. My job was just to do my very best, to take my steps forward, as Christ would have me to do. That meant we needed to seek peace. That was also kind of the route that Sach took, as well, and I loved that about him.”

Now that the case is settled, Heather said she and her family are moving on with life but there always will be reminders of the tragedy. There are days when her limp is hardly noticeable, she said, and other days when she looks “like Igor” while “dragging things through the house.” She still experiences pain, as does David. Tristan is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), she said, while Canyon sometimes mentions the accident but is harder to access because of his autism.

The pain and the scars may never go away, she knows, but she said at least one good thing came from it: Their relationship with the team at the Oliver Law Firm.

“I would just say that I personally trust Sach and his team immensely,” she said. “They were phenomenal from day one, and I cannot imagine my life without them still in it in some way, shape or form. They’re definitely on my Christmas card list, and there’s going to have to be phone calls to see how everybody is doing. It’s not a relationship that I can just let go of.”