Sean C. Morgan
Kylee Anne Simonis, 15, continues to improve following a fatal crash on Highway 228 east of Brownsville.
Her brother, Caleb Frank Simonis, 19, and sister, Shelby Rose Simonis, 16, were fatally injured in the the crash, in which investigators determined that the driver of the second vehicle was drunk.
Kylee, who was finishing her freshman year at Central Linn High School, was transported by Life Flight to Riverbend Hospital in Springfield, where she was in the intensive care unit through Thursday, May 28, when the hospital transferred her to pediatrics.
“Kylee’s had a pretty good couple of days,” said her father, Jim Simonis. “Just a couple of days they were talking about re-intubating her.”
The doctors were able to find and release fluid that had built up, Simonis said, and Kylee vastly improved from there.
“There’s nothing in her that hasn’t been yanked and pulled,” Simonis said. She hurts everywhere, but she is improving.
The doctors had to remove portions of her small and large intestines, he said, to allow her gut to start working again. During the last week she has started walking, taken a shower and been awake and alert.
“I think everybody will be in agreeance she’s pretty much out of the woods,” Simonis said. “She’s going to live.”
All three of the children were returning home together in their vehicle May 23 when they had taken Kylee’s dog, Darby, to see their mother, veterinarian Amy Heath Simonis, to be stitched up after she was injured during a dog fight. Simonis isn’t sure how, but Darby survived the crash.
“That’s what they did,” Simonis said. “They went everywhere together.”
All of them were involved in 4-H, and Shelby and Kylee had gotten involved in Future Farmers of America, Simonis said. “We’re a 4-H family.”
A 2018 graduate of Sweet Home High School, Caleb, who would have turned 20 on June 9, was in his second year at Linn-Benton Community College), Jim Simonis said. Caleb took general studies his first year. “He just decided he wanted to go take the mechanical classes.”
Caleb was in his first of two years in that program and had planned to to take two years in diesel and heavy machinery at LBCC in Lebanon.
“His end goal, he wanted to own his own service truck,” Simonis said. That he could work on everything from a commuter car to a tractor, and he could make house calls.
In high school Caleb lettered in football after keeping stats for two years for Coach Dustin Nichol, Simonis said. He also regularly showed livestock, but his sisters seemed to be most important to Caleb.
“Caleb was just a super quiet kid,” Simonis said. He was always in the background, but he was always there, “almost like he put his life on hold to watch over his sisters.”
When they were taking their livestock to a show, he would go with them, Simonis said. They were best friends.
“He never looked for the spotlight but preferred to let it shine on his sisters,” Simonis said in a Facebook post.
Looking back through Facebook photos, Simonis pointed to one where the three are together. Caleb is holding a rope. The girls are looking at the camera.
“He’s looking at his sisters,” Simonis told The New Era. “They were in the spotlight, and he’s holding the rope.”
Shelby, who was just finishing her junior year at Central Linn High School, was more at the center of things.
“I may be Dad, but Shelby was our matriarch,” Simonis said. “She has been since she was 10 years old.”
If Shelby said something was “this way,” then “it was so,” Simonis said. If she said an animal needed a particular medicine, it did. Her mother is a veterinarian, but still she would consult with Shelby.
At home, Caleb would be on his phone playing a game, but not Shelby, Simonis said. She was busy looking up expected progeny differences (EPDs) for cattle.
“She didn’t have games on her phone,” Simonis said. On social media, she was talking about her German shorthair dog.
Shelby was happy to oblige when asked by the beef superintendent at a livestock show to help out.
It didn’t matter if it was cold, rainy and miserable out, Simoni said, “Shelby would be smiling.”
Going through Facebook photos of his children, he found one that showed Shelby sitting by him on a side-by-side, he said. He had told her to put on a raincoat. She went over, grabbed a feed bag, cut holes for her arms and head and put that on.
“She didn’t complain,” he said. “When she had her dogs and her animals, it was a good day.”
If people look back in their minds, they should remember seeing her at the shows, Simonis said, and looking back more carefully, they should see who always pushing the wheelbarrow – “Caleb. He’s always there.”
Simonis said his family is thankful for the outpouring of support throughout the community, while the family deals with the aftermath of the crash.
“I can’t get across how amazing our people are,” Simonis said. “Sweet Home has fallen on us, to protect us. Central Linn, Brownsville, Halsey, Lebanon. The outpouring (from the) people is crazy.”
A local business has refused to accept payment for the rest of their 4-H and FFA projects, and an individual has provided hay, Simonis said. Others have stepped up to take care of those projects.
A gofundme page has been set up at http://www.gofundme.com/f/simonis-family-support-fund to support the family.