Legacy alumnus Caleb Jones and his family attended Oklahoma State University’s homecoming celebration Oct. 24. They planned on watching a parade honoring OSU alumni, screaming their lungs out at the football game and winding down afterwards, reveling in an OSU football victory over the University of Kansas Jayhawks.

The Jones’ plans changed when bodies flew into the air as panic and screams filled the street of OSU fans and alumni. Scores of people were injured as a gray Hyundai barreled through people and other vehicles. Some people ran away from the incident, Legacy alumnus Caleb Jones and his father, Blair Jones, ran to the scene to assist the injured.

“Being in the Boy Scouts we know to remain calm and try and keep emotions low for the meantime,” Caleb said. “My father and I ran into the crowd to try and help as many people as we could. It was absolute chaos.”

Oklahoma State University celebrated their homecoming, when alumni are invited back to campus for a football game, with a week of festivities including a ceremonial dying of the Edmon Low Library fountain, a carnival and the nationally renowned “Sea of Orange Parade.” Homecoming draws large crowds from alumni and their families, Caleb estimated attendance at around 80,000 people.

A day of celebration was marred by an accident caused by Adacia Chambers, a 25 year old woman who is purported to have been suffering from a mental illness. Caleb recalls the woman had no reaction to the speed she was traveling at when she entered the intersection near the end of the parade.

“Being in a college town I’ve seen plenty of people driving under the influence. Driving drunk delays your reaction,” Caleb said. “This lady had no reaction whatsoever, no brake lights. She just plowed through the intersection.”

Pandemonium broke out when Adacia Chamber’s 2014 Hyundai Elantra, traveling at speeds approximated at 50-60 miles per hour by Caleb, struck a dormant police motorcycle and continued into several parade-goers. The police motorcycle flew through the crowds of people, striking and injuring many. Caleb’s mother, Patti Jones, described the sound as like an explosion.

“I never heard a bomb go off,” Patti said, “but I could just hear a metal crashing sound and screaming. Out of my peripheral vision I could see a grey figure. It was the car.”

The Jones’ immediately ran toward the car after it stopped moving. Blair is a dentist in Mansfield and has first aid experience as a former Boy Scout and Merit Badge Instructor. Blair didn’t hesitate to go into the scene and help the injured.

“You see that happening, and you have all these thoughts going through your brain all at the same time,” Blair said. “There was never really a thought to whether I should go in or not go in.”

For both of the Joneses, the hardest part has been moving on after seeing the incident. Blair has had a difficult time forgetting the “reruns” in his mind.

“That desire to shut off the reruns, they’re running in the background all the time,” Blair said. “If you’re busy it’s not bad, when you slow down and got time to think about it, it gets tough.”

The city of Stillwater, Okla. is slowly moving past the incident. Grief counselors as well as therapy dogs have been offered to students looking for consolation following the crash.

“I was pretty lucky because I got to leave town once it was over,” Blair said. “For people in Stillwater and the students. They’re faced with it everyday.”

Just prior to the incident Caleb’s mother, Patti Jones, urged her family to move across the intersection to get a better view of the parade, a decision that may have saved their lives. Blair has no better answer to the question of why they moved from the side affected by the crash other than his faith.

“If we had stayed where we were it would’ve been an entirely different story,” Blair said. “I think God was watching out for us and protecting us.”

During Caleb’s time at Legacy he participated in the Broadcast program (LBTV) and now studies Multimedia Journalism at OSU. When the crash scene began to calm down Caleb changed from a bystander to a journalist, arranging interviews and informing OSU’s student publication, The O’Colly, what he knew about the incident. While in their newsroom he got in contact with MSNBC who had an interview set up the same day.

“Caleb told us, ‘I’ve got to go to work,’ and I just said ‘OK you go do what you got to do,” Blair said. “He handled himself really well with that. I know it’s hard for him to retell that story on national TV.”

The Jones family as well as all the people involved now face a mourning period of remembrance and trying to forget the tragic memories from Stillwater that day. Patti will think twice when standing near intersections for the rest of her life.

“You’ll never turn your back to an intersection ever again, you’ll never stand in a cross walk ever again,” Patti said. “It’s a horrific experience you don’t want to have.”