'A helpless feeling'

Sept. 18, 2005

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU -- Zachariah Tanner told his mother he was driving to Talkeetna to pick up his i-Pod at his dad's house at about 6:30 Monday evening.

When Zach's mom, Kristan Cole, hadn't heard from the Colony sophomore by 3 a.m. Tuesday, she called his father, Yukon Don Tanner. Zach wasn't with Tanner and his wife, Beverly, at their Big Lake condo.

"You hear and see situations like this on TV," Tanner said. "But it is such a helpless feeling. You go back to saying that he's a good kid, always responsible, but maybe this time he went to a party."

In spite of the early hour, Tanner and Cole called all of Zach's friends. They called people in Wasilla and Talkeetna, employees at their store and the staff at the high school. No one had heard from him.

Tanner called the Alaska State Troopers, he said, and they formulated a 12-hour, 24-hour and 48-hour plan.

"By noon, we would assume foul play," Tanner said.

At 8:30 a.m., Tanner had notified Matanuska Electric Association and Enstar to have crews that travel back roads keep an eye out for the black 1999 Ford Explorer the 16-year-old was driving.

Cole, her husband, Brad, and her brother, Craig, went up to Talkeetna to see if Zach was at the house. They met a trooper there, on the same mission, according to Tanner. No Zach.

By 9 a.m., two friends had their airplanes up, flying above the road in a fruitless search for the missing sport-utility vehicle.

Glen Addington was taking his usual morning walk in Houston when he saw something that didn't look right. He saw a disturbance in the roadside grass and followed his curiosity off the road until he found a flattened mass of metal and what he thought was a body. The body moved. He had found Zach.

Sixteen hours after his Explorer left the road, hit a stump, careened down an embankment and smashed into some birch trees, Zach was able to tell Addington his name before he lapsed into unconsciousness.

He lay partially on the ground, having somehow extricated himself from the car. Zach had even managed to dial his dad's number on a cell phone, but the call never went through.

Addington found some sweatpants in the wreck and covered Zack, told him he was going to get help and went to a nearby house to call 911.

An MEA crew arrived about the time Addington returned.

One of the crewmen called Tanner and read him the license plate numbers.

"We got Zach," the man said.

Meanwhile, Virgie and Tim McKeown, emergency medical technicians in Sunshine, received the 911 call and drove down to pick up the Willow ambulance, which they took to Mile 63 Parks Hwy. to extricate Zack, load him up and drive to Wasilla Airport.

Cole got the call while she was in Talkeetna. She drove to the accident scene and rode the rest of the way with her son.

Providence LifeGuard didn't have a helicopter available, so a fixed-wing LifeGuard flight took Zach and Cole to Merrill Field in Anchorage, and from there, another ambulance took them to Providence Alaska Medical Center.

Four hours after he got the call his son was alive, Tanner met the arriving ambulance.

Zach's foot, jaw and collarbone were broken. Both bones in his lower left leg had snapped in two.

"Hypothermia saved his life," Tanner said. "The blood retreated to his body's core, slowing the bleeding from the injuries."

Friday, a physical therapist told Zach he could scratch if he wanted to. Still unconscious in the intensive care unit, Zach scratched his nose, according to Tanner.

The Colony football team dedicated Friday's game against Juneau to Zach, their teammate, according to Beverly Tanner.

"They will call every quarter, so his mom can tell him the score," she said.

Zach's family asks well-wishers to send cards to Zach at Providence Alaska Medical Center, P.O. Box 196604, Anchorage, AK., 99519. For now, Zach can't have calls or visits.

"We ask for lots of prayers," said both Tanners, in agreement that everything that happened was testimony to miracles.

"Everything that happened was providential," Tanner said. "We've already seen the power of prayer."

Contact Mary Ames at 352-2284 or mary.ames@frontiersman.com.