PORT ANGELES – Austin Owens remembers his father desperately trying to slow the speeding motor home, uselessly pounding the brake pedal as helplessness and terror surged through the son.
“I don’t know how fast we were going,” Austin Owens, 22, said as the Missouri family’s motor home hurtled down Mount Angeles Road as it becomes Race Street last Tuesday.
“But the RV was so big, and it was picking up more and more speed.
“I was trying to get to the front to see what I could do.”
Lonnie Owens, who was driving, was unable to slow the 17-ton RV by pumping the brake pedal.
Neither did the impact of crashes with three other vehicles.
The driver, 50, a printer from Fair Grove, Mo., died on Thursday from injuries he received when the RV carrying Austin and six others overturned and plummeted into a gully off Race Street just north of Lauridsen Boulevard.
Police and family members think the brakes on the RV failed after a descent to near sea level from 5,100-foot Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.
But investigation of the cause of the crash – hampered by the extensive damage to the RV – was halted by Port Angeles police after Lonnie Owens’ death, because there was no possibility of charges against the driver.
