A happy reunion after traumatic initial meeting

By April Leigh

It was a sunny August afternoon when Ida van Schalkwyk and her daughter Charlize got in their 2006 Ford Explorer to run errands.

It was a perfect time for 15-year-old Charlize, who recently got her permit, to get some more time behind the wheel. When they started out, neither of them expected to be rear ended by a semi-truck.

But that’s exactly what happened.

Charlize was slowing down for traffic on southbound I-5 near Pacific Avenue in Lacey when she was hit from behind by a semi-truck and trailer. Luckily, no one was severely hurt. But it was fast and frightening, and the collision totaled their SUV.

But there was help after the initial trauma.

WSDOT Incident Response’s Bobbi Winchester poses for a photo with Charlize, who she helped after a crash on I-5.

For Charlize and Ida, the one thing that made them both feel just a little better that day was Bobbi Winchester.

Bobbi works for WSDOT Incident Response and was one of the first to arrive at the scene.

Ida and Charlize say that when Bobbi got there, she put everyone at ease. She was calm, kind and helpful. She stayed with them as long as she could after the crash and assured them that everything was going to be alright.

Before the crash, Ida knew how important Bobbi and her coworkers were to keeping things moving on the road. Ida is a WSDOT Transportation Technical Engineer who has analyzed and compiled crash data.

What she didn’t know was how much Bobbi’s help would mean to her and daughter. She wondered if Bobbi and her coworkers knew how much it meant.

So, Ida and Charlize decided to tell them.

Ida van Schalkwyk and Charlize meet to thank Bobbi Winchester for her help.

Armed with personalized thank-you cards and boxes of doughnuts, Ida and Charlize met up with Bobbi and a few of her coworkers in Olympia after the crash.

They hugged and greeted each other like family. Bobbi asked how they were, and Charlize told her about her first day as a high school sophomore. They talked about the crash and how lucky they were that it wasn’t worse.

Bobbi Winchester reads a personalized thank you card from Ida and Charlize.

Bobbi smiled. She’s been an Incident Response Team member for seven years. She’s seen worse and was glad that this family was okay.

Most of the time, Bobbi sees people on some of their worst days. She rarely gets the chance to speak with people after she leaves a crash. She does what she can to help ease the fear and trauma she knows they’re going through. In her truck, she keeps stuffed animals to give to kids involved in crashes she responds to.

Charlize holds one of the stuffed animals Bobbi carries in her car to give to kids involved in collisions on I-5.

After a few final words of appreciation and thanks, the group say their goodbyes. Bobbi encourages Charlize to continue working towards her driver’s license, despite the rough start. Charlize promises she will.

By the numbers

Members of our Incident Response Unit help drivers in need along some of the state’s busiest highways.

According to the most recent quarterly report:

• WSDOT responded to 10,323 incidents during the second quarter of 2024.
• More than two thirds of those incidents were cleared in under 15 minutes.

The program has 86 employees and 69 dedicated IRT vehicles. Teams are on-call 24/7 and actively patrol approximately 1,300 centerline miles (3,400 lane miles) of highway on major corridors around the state during peak traffic hours.