More than 200 people gathered in El Reno on Monday night to remember four young people killed in a fiery wrong-way crash on Interstate 40. The vigil, held near El Reno High School, drew families, classmates and neighbors still trying to absorb what happened last Friday near Czech Hall Road in Yukon.
According to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, a suspected drunk driver was traveling the wrong way on Interstate 40 when the crash happened. The vehicle carrying the four victims caught fire, and all four died at the scene. The victims were ages 18 to 20: 20-year-old Kiercey Hickson of Stillwater, 19-year-old Quincy Jones of El Reno, 18-year-old Haleigh Salazar of El Reno and 18-year-old Brad Palmer of El Reno.
For many in the crowd, the loss was personal. Nancy Salsman said three of the victims had once been students in her second-grade classroom. She said there were lots of tears from both her and the families, and that the bond never really goes away when children grow up in a small community. “You just make that connection that never goes away. They’re always your kids. And when something like this happens we come together,” she said.
The vigil became a place for shared grief across several towns, with residents from El Reno, Stillwater and Yukon continuing to mourn together as the evening went on. Julie Huber said she could not imagine the pain the families are carrying and said hearts, thoughts and prayers were with them. Brandi Higgins said the loss has shaken the area, adding that the young victims were close and the community around them is close too. That closeness has become part of the response, from the classroom memories Salsman described to the turnout near the high school where three of the victims had recently graduated.
The crash has left El Reno facing a loss that reaches well beyond one family or one school. The immediate question now is how the community carries the weight of four young deaths linked to a wrong-way crash that should never have happened, and whether that grief turns into the kind of public pressure that keeps another family from living through the same night.
