The last thing Zackery Oliver remembers before blacking out on Feb. 9 was seeing a school bus approach the passenger side of his 1996 Buick as it slid on ice. Oliver has no memory of the two weeks that followed his accident, but friends and family remember it well.
"The very first words I heard when I got to the hospital were "Zackery will never be the same,'" Zackery's mother, Kaye Landers, said through tears as she recounted the events of that day.
Oliver, a senior at Fulton High School, was on his way to school from his mother's home in Steedman when he saw a stop sign at the end of Wildwood Estates Drive where it meets Route O. Oliver said he braked for the stop sign but to no avail; his car started sliding on the ice. His Buick slid right into the pathway of a South Callaway School District bus. No one on the bus was injured, but Oliver was taken by ambulance to University Hospital in Columbia in serious condition.