Linden crash kills 18-year-old

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Family, friends stunned by man's death after car swerved off road to avoid deer

By Ben Orcutt -- borcutt@nvdaily.com

LINDEN -- State police continue to investigate an early Wednesday morning crash that claimed the life of Nathen Yuhasse, 18, who graduated from Warren County High School in June.

The crash occurred on Oregon Hollow Road about 12:15 a.m. when the 2002 Toyota Camry that Yuhasse was a passenger in the rear seat of crashed, according to Trooper Jeff Rose.

Rose said the driver of the vehicle, a 17-year-old female, said she swerved to miss a deer as she was headed north on Oregon Hollow Road.

"The vehicle ran off the road to the left and overturned into a creek," Rose said. "All four of the other occupants were transported and treated at Warren Memorial."

Rose said he did not know the extent of the injuries to the other occupants, who are all teenagers. Rose said the driver was wearing a seat belt when the crash occurred, as was Matthew Nathan Marshall Jr., 18, who was in the front passenger seat.

Another 17-year-old female who was riding in the rear of the car was wearing a seat belt, but neither Yuhasse nor Andrew Polk, 18, were wearing seat belts, Rose said.

Rose said that Oregon Hollow Road is a dirt road with loose gravel. He said that alcohol did not appear to be a factor in the crash, but that charges against the driver were pending.

Rose said that Yuhasse died at the scene of the crash.

Yuhasse's father, Jeffrey Yuhasse, 38, said he was told that his son died from a fractured spine.

"He had just recently went back to work for Lowe's," Jeffrey Yuhasse said. "Just within the last week he had gotten a job and had plans to go to school in the fall or the spring I guess."

Jeffrey Yuhasse said he and his wife, April, 33, have two other sons, Shane, 10, and Aiden, 5, who were kept out of school on Wednesday after the family was informed of the 18-year-old's death about 2 a.m. by Rose.

Jeffrey Yuhasse said that funeral plans were incomplete, but that Maddox Funeral Home in Front Royal would handle the arrangements. The other teenagers in the car with his son were friends, he said.

Jeffrey Yuhasse said he and his family moved to Linden in 2002 from Warrenton.

"We bought a home out here, and it was a good place to raise a family," he said.

He said his son was "a good-hearted kid."

"I hate to say it, but at this point, he was an 18-year-old kid just trying to figure out what to do with his life," Jeffrey Yuhasse said while being overcome with emotion, his voice cracking.

While not taking the driver in this case to task or commenting specifically on this crash, Warren County Sheriff Daniel T. McEathron said this is the time of year there are more deer on area roads, in part because of hunting season. Rather than trying to miss a deer with a vehicle, McEathron said it's best to try to brake and maneuver around the animal, if possible.

McEathron said once drivers run off the road, they're "at the mercy of where that's going to take you."

Drivers need to "expect the unexpected," McEathron said.

Fred Frenzel, a district biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, spoke in a similar vein.

"You never want to swerve to avoid the deer," Frenzel said. "That's when the more serious accidents occur. There's a lot more deer activity this time of year because you've got the breeding season."

The deer tend to be more prevalent at dawn and dusk, Frenzel said.

"I would just caution folks, especially if you're driving in an area that has a lot of deer, slow down," Frenzel added.

Frenzel said deer often travel in groups this time of year, and November tends to be the highest month for deer being killed on Virginia highways.

Ashley Sisk, a 17-year-old senior at Skyline High School, said Wednesday that she had known the younger Yuhasse for about four years.

"I was shocked and didn't really know what to think or what to say," she said when she learned of Yuhasse's death. "I really couldn't believe that it happened."

Sisk said the last time she saw Yuhasse was when they ran into each other in Wal-Mart over the weekend after he had gotten off work.

"Which made it even more shocking because I had just seen him on Sunday," she said. "So it still doesn't even seem real. I mean, it just lets everybody know that anything can happen at any time. Nobody is indestructible."

Sisk said she'll miss Yuhasse.

"He was so much fun," she said. "He was the kind of person that pretty much everybody loved to be around. He was sweet. He tried to be nice to everybody and to give everybody a fair chance. He was just a wonderful person."

Sisk said Yuhasse was a native of New York state and was a big fan of the New York Yankees. Al-though he didn't mention it to her when she saw him in Wal-Mart, Sisk believes that he had to have been pleased that his Yankees had captured their 27th World Series crown just days earlier.

"He was such a big Yankee fan, he had to have been happy," she said.