Those Who Knew Victims Describe Full Lives
By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The helicopter crash in the rain and fog early Sunday in Prince George's County took the lives of three Waldorf residents and a Carroll County man.
The incident began late Saturday night when two recent Westlake High School graduates were heading home by car in Waldorf and the driver lost control of her Ford Taurus, causing it to cross the median, hit several trees and crash into another car.
A Maryland State Police medical helicopter was sent to the scene. Rescue workers decided to take the girls to Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly. The onboard team included a Waldorf emergency responder who volunteered to accompany the girls, the pilot from Waldorf and a paramedic from Carroll County who monitored the girls involved in the car crash.
The helicopter encountered bad weather and crashed shortly after midnight in Walker Mill Regional Park, killing the rescue team and Ashley J. Younger, one of the girls involved in the car crash. The other teen, Jordan Wells, survived. She is in critical condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.
Following is information about the victims and what happened that night:
Pilot Stephen J. Bunker, 59Bunker and his wife, Sherry, had lived on the same street in the Lancaster neighborhood in Waldorf for 20 years. The retired state police corporal and father of three was well known and respected in Waldorf.
"If you looked at him, you would say, 'He just looks like a police officer,' " said Rose Marie Drish, 42, who has lived across the street from Bunker for 20 years. "There was a lot of peace here in this neighborhood because of him."
Bunker was a state police officer from 1972 until his retirement in 1998. He returned to service as a civilian medical evacuation pilot for the department.
He loved aviation and helping people, so "being a pilot for the Maryland State Police enabled him to do both," his wife said in a statement. During his career, she said, Bunker and his colleagues saved many lives.
"He was a hero to his family and all who knew him," she said. "He died doing what he loved to do."
Bunker's three children -- Stacie, Shelby and Scott Bunker -- said he was a fantastic father who will be missed by everyone.
"My father has always been a role model in my life," Stacie Bunker said in a statement. "He taught me to be honest, work hard, and keep life in proper perspective. He is truly my hero."
A viewing for Bunker will be tomorrow from 2 to 8 p.m. at South Potomac Church, 4915 Crain Hwy., White Plains. The funeral will be Saturday at 11 a.m. at South Potomac Church.
Volunteer EMS Tonya Mallard, 39Minutes after the car crash Saturday night, two ambulances from Waldorf's Station 12 headed to the scene.
In one ambulance was Mallard, a volunteer emergency responder and mother of two boys who began volunteering with the station in May 2004, although she had taken a year-long break recently.
When responders decided that the teens needed to be flown to Prince George's Medical Center, Mallard volunteered to accompany them.
"Tonya stepped up and said, 'I'll go with them,' " said Dan Stevens, Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department chief.
At 1:30 a.m. Sunday, Stevens received a call at home: The helicopter was overdue.
Stevens and dozens of other volunteers went to the station to wait for updates. At 2:45 a.m., police confirmed that Mallard had died when the helicopter crashed.
At 5 a.m., about 40 volunteers gathered in a circle at the fire station and took turns describing their feelings, Stevens said. Many recalled their last encounters with Mallard, the tall, compassionate and friendly woman with an "infectious smile."
"People say, 'That could have been me. That should have been me,' " Stevens said.
On Sunday afternoon, volunteers lowered flags at the three Waldorf stations and draped the buildings with black fabric. "I can't stand draping a building," said Sue Perry, a professional county emergency medical technician who helped affix the fabric to Station 12. "It could have been any of us."
Dozens of people stopped by Mallard's home in Waldorf to offer condolences to her husband, Ken, and their sons, ages 11 and 15.
A viewing will be held tomorrow at Lighthouse Baptist Church, 3150 Middletown Road, Waldorf, from 3 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. Mallard's funeral will be at 9 a.m. Saturday at Waldorf's North Point High School, 2500 Davis Road.
Ashley J. Younger, 17Younger always answered her cellphone with these words: "House of Beauty, Miss Cutie speaking." She was energetic, outgoing, friendly, caring and very fashionable. Her style? "Bohemian Chic."
"She would let me come visit her at college only if I promised to look like a mama but not an old maid," her single mother, Stephanie Younger, said Monday.
Younger graduated from Westlake in June and was a freshman at Frostburg State University, where she studied accounting, had joined numerous clubs and "was having a blast," her mother said.
Younger had returned home to Waldorf for the weekend to attend her mother's promotion ceremony at the Pentagon. She was becoming a sergeant first class, a major milestone for the mother and daughter who "grew up together" in the Army.
With the house full of visiting relatives, Younger planned to spend Saturday night in her mother's room. That way, the two could talk about school and the cute chemistry major she had just met.
On Saturday evening, Ashley Younger put on a blue sundress -- the same one she wore to a graduation barbecue over the summer -- with a brown jacket and some "slouchy brown boots." She and Wells, a friend from high school, went to a carnival at the Waldorf mall. The two girls thought about seeing a movie but decided to call it a night.
Wells was close to Younger's home when the crash occurred. Younger immediately called her mother, who arrived at the scene with a friend and Younger's grandmother.
Stephanie Younger kissed her daughter and reassured the teen as she lay on a stretcher on a Southern Maryland roadway illuminated by ambulance lights.
"You'll be okay," she remembers telling her. "They just want to check you out. You'll be fine."
Hours later, Stephanie Younger learned that her daughter had died in the helicopter crash as she was being taken to the hospital.
"She was like no other kid I knew," Younger said, standing in her daughter's room. "She would give of herself to others. She hated to see others mistreated."
The Younger family plans to have a memorial service in Southern Maryland, followed by a funeral and burial in South Carolina where Stephanie Younger grew up.
Jordan Wells, 18Scott and Lynn Wells are joyful that their bubbly daughter survived both crashes and held on for two hours as rescue crews searched for the helicopter.
But they are grieving the deaths of the others.
"We have mixed emotions," Scott Wells said Monday morning at the trauma center. "We're very, very thankful our daughter is alive . . . but we're deeply aware of the tragedy."
The Wellses did not know about either crash until Prince George's officials contacted them at about 4 a.m. Sunday -- more than five frantic hours after their daughter was expected home.
"Our daughter was missing. We didn't know what was going on," Lynn Wells said. "We still don't know what happened."
Slowly, as they feared for the life of their daughter, the Wellses heard portions of the story and were told that the crash victims included fellow Waldorf residents. The pilot was a family friend. The medic has a son at Westlake.
The crashes left Jordan Wells with a bruised lung and many broken bones. Doctors told her parents that their daughter, the youngest of three children, should be able to walk again.
Doctors operated on Wells's knees and legs Sunday night, alleviating fears that amputation might be necessary. Still, it will take months of recovery and physical therapy before Wells will be able to return to classes at the College of Southern Maryland, where she is a freshman studying psychology. She plans to be a school counselor someday.
"God has a mission for her," Lynn Wells said. "We are so blessed he was watching over her."
Paramedic Trooper Mickey C. Lippy, 34Lippy was a devoted husband and father who "died doing what he loved, the only thing he had ever wanted to do," his older sister Dawn Childs said.
The family gathered yesterday at Lippy's home in Carroll County to comfort his wife, Christina, who gave birth to the couple's first child, Madison, in May.
"He only got to spend four months with his baby," Childs said, choking back tears.
Lippy had wanted to be a paramedic ever since he stuck his arm through a glass door when he was 3, Childs said.
"He had to have major surgery on his arm and, I guess, because of that, being in and out of the hospital so long when he was 3," said Childs, 40, who said she vividly remembers how Lippy would hurry home from school to watch "Emergency!," the 1970s television show about paramedics and firefighters.
Lippy began working as a volunteer firefighter as a teen, as soon as he could drive, Childs said. When he became a state trooper four years ago, he worked patrol for less than a year before applying for the aviation unit, Childs said.
A viewing for Lippy will be from 2 to 8 p.m. today at Gamber Volunteer Fire Station, 3838 Niner Road in Finksburg. The funeral will be at the fire station at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
Metro reporter Aaron Davis and researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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