Man injured in Saturday's accident speaks

Michael Badurek is still processing the early Saturday morning crash that killed two of his friends and seriously injured a third.

Badurek, who graduated this spring from Red River High School, suffered cuts and bruises and has swelling under his right bicep along with general soreness. Other than that, he’s OK.

He was released from Altru Hospital at 8 a.m. Saturday. “Then I just came home and just rested all day.”

He said they had dropped off the mother of Katie Olson, who was driving, and had plans to go to Denny’s restaurant but needed to stop at a cash machine before they went for food.

They were turning off 17th Avenue South onto Columbia Road when it happened.

“I just saw two headlights come out of nowhere and smash in to us,” the 18 year-old said. “I think Katie tried to speed up to get past it (the oncoming car) because there was no way we would have been able to stop in time.”

After that things get hazy. Badurek, who was the front passenger, remembers a man opening his door and trying to unclip his seat belt. The man left and came back with a knife to cut the belt free.

Then, “I just remember somebody taking me over to, like, a pole and leaning me against it,” he said. “I remember like calling 911. I called my mom, and I called my sister and told them to meet me at the hospital.”

Tags: gf and egf, traffic deaths, fatal accidents, news, accidents