News

DCB photography professor injured in auto accident

Scott Wagar

12/23/2013

Saunders.jpg Image

Dakota College at Bottineau’s photography instructor, Clint Saunders, was in a traffic accident late last week near Gillette, Wyo., which has left him seriously injured and hospitalized.

Saunders was driving from Bottineau to Casper, Wyo., last Friday evening when he encountered an oil tanker stalled completely across the road he was on when the accident occurred.

“I was on a little two lane highway, Highway 50, and all of a sudden out of no where there was a tanker sideways taking up the entire highway in front of me, sitting there in the dark with no lights or flashers on just sitting there,” Saunders said. “I started to duck out of instinct because the tanker was head high, but I caught  myself and hit the brakes, swerved and kind of did a head on with his rear axel at about 65 miles per hour.”

Saunders, in severe pain through his entire body, was trapped in his Honda Odyssey with the mini-van almost completely wrapped around him. When emergency rescue arrived at the scene, they had to cut Saunders out of the vehicle with the Jaws of Life.

He was taken to a medical facility in Gillette where he was treated for a broken left pelvis, a bruised right knee with a torn ACL, MCL and other damage to the knee, along with cuts and contusions on his body.

Saunders will be in the Gillette medical facility until today (Monday) and then be transferred to a rehab center in Casper for two weeks of rehabilitation.

“I can’t put any weight on my left leg for eight weeks,” Saunders said. “And, because of the damage to my right knee I can’t put any weight on it either.”

It appears that Saunders should make a full recovery from the accident and is in good spirits considering he was driving to his hometown of Casper for his Christmas break from DCB.  

“I’m lucky to be alive,” he said. “It is going to be the best Christmas ever.”

Saunders’ Odyssey was totaled in the accident and he lost over $30,000 worth of cameras, lenses, lighting equipment and two computers with his life’s work on them. Saunders is hoping to retrieve the hard drives from his computer to recover his work.

According to Saunders, the semi-trailer he struck was stalled on the road due to the fact he was making an attempt to turn around on the highway. Midway through the driver’s u-turn on the road his truck stalled and he was having difficulty in getting the truck started again when the accident happened.

The truck driver was ticketed for causing the accident.

Saunders is in his first year as an instructor of photography at DCB.