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SANDY — It was supposed to be backpacking and fishing trip to celebrate the end of a successful school year.
The Jackson family, from Richmond, Cache County, were on U.S. 30 in Wyoming near Kemmerer when a vehicle traveling in the opposite lane pulled out in front of them while trying to pass a semitruck.
"We saw her come out to pass the semi, I would say we probably had a few seconds. Trevor slammed on the brakes, fish-tailed, and then there was impact from there," Seantae Jackson recalled Thursday.
The two vehicles hit head-on.
"It's like you're hitting a brick wall at an estimated 130 mph. After the force of the impact, we all blacked out. And since I was driving, the engine was pushed onto my lap and I was instantly trapped inside the vehicle and the vehicle started on fire two times," Trevor Jackson said.
Both of Jackson's femurs were broken, his sternum was cracked and the ACL and MCL in his left knee were torn. His wife, Seantae, suffered a dislocated arm, elbow injury, torn muscles in her left shoulder and bruising on her lungs.
Their twin sons, Owen and Cameron, 15, were also injured. Owen had the worst injuries, suffering a severe, life-threatening brain injury that left him in a medically-induced for coma for nine days. The family says for a time, they were unsure if Owen would survive.
"The future was very dark," Trevor Jackson said.
Another woman, a friend of the family who was traveling with them, also suffered a broken femur and had internal bleeding.
A 55-year-old woman driving the vehicle that hit the Jacksons was killed.
That crash was on July 14, 2021. On Thursday, the Jackson family stood side-by-side during a Zero Fatalities press conference hosted by the Utah Highway Patrol and the Utah Department of Transportation to remind drivers to be safe on the road as they head into the Labor Day weekend.
UHP Col. Michael Rapich said he was happy to have the Jackson family there.
"For 215 people already this year, that is not the case," he said.
As of Thursday, 215 people have been killed on Utah's roads so far this year, including 94 during the so-called "100 Deadliest Days of Summer," the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Utah is on pace to set a new record for people killed on the road during a single year, Rapich said, breaking the previous records which was set just last year.
"This is not an issue we can enforce our way out of," he said while pleading with drivers to do their part.
Excessive speed, impairment, distracted driving and even a decrease in seat belt usage have all contributed to the high numbers, according to both the UHP and UDOT. Troopers wrote more than 4,600 citations for speeding during 2021. Through Thursday, they have already issued 4,300 this year, Rapich said.
He pleaded with the public to stop being aggressive behind the wheel and to stop speeding.
"Don't make driving a competition. Remember, it's not just you, it's everyone else," he said.
To emphasis the dangers of aggressive driving, state officials invited the Jackson family to speak at their event.
Trevor and Seantae Jackson have been married 17 years and have five children, including two sets of twins. They love spending time in the outdoors. Last summer, as a reward for Owen and Cameron getting good grades in school, they set off for a backpacking adventure.
That's when they were hit.
"Our lives have been forever changed because of this accident. It has been and continues to be a long road of recovery for our family," Seantae Jackson said. "One action changed our lives forever. We will never have the life that we had before this accident and the impact it has taken on our family will leave us forever changed."
But despite the hard situation they were in, the couple and their friend right away decided they were going to turn the horrific event into a way to help others.
"We all immediately felt like we want to help somebody else, some way. We all had different ideas on what that would look like, but it was really immediate. Owen was still in a coma when we all said, 'We need to help other people,'" Seantae Jackson said.
The Jacksons came up with the Sandal Blue Foundation. The namesake of their nonprofit comes from the name doctors placed on Trevor Jackson's wristband when he was first admitted to the emergency room and his real name was unknown. The John Doe name stuck for several days while Jackson was in the hospital. The family has since come to embrace the name, even though they say the sandals he was wearing that day were brown.
The goal of the Sandal Blue Foundation is to help other survivors of crashes and their families. The Jacksons also speak regularly across the state, encouraging people to drive safely.
Despite their seemingly amazing recovery, the Jackson family says they still face difficult days.
"Our whole entire life has been trying to get better. So it's been lots of hours everyday of physical therapy and things like that to try and get range of motion back and strength and all those things," said Seantae Jackson, who had a physical therapy appointment scheduled right after the press conference.
The family is still going through numerous doctor appointments, therapy and counseling. She just recently went back to work after more than a year and her husband has yet to return to work. Though he can't run and still has trouble with stairs, Trevor Jackson — who was training for a marathon when the crash happened — can stand on his own, something he said his doctors are amazed at.
Despite the long road to recovery, the Jacksons say they have tried their best to turn lemons into lemonade.
"There's a lot of really hard days. So we just try to make the best of things as we can. When we're having a hard day, we let ourselves. And then we feel like when we can make some lemonade, we try, otherwise we just taste the sour. We do a little bit of both," Seantae Jackson said.
