Editor’s Note: This is first in a four-part series depicting the life of ISU golfer Tyler Swanson after a near-fatal car accident in May.

A trucker with a flashlight found Tyler Swanson face down and barely breathing a foot away from the pavement of the eastbound lanes of Interstate 80.

As ISU students headed home from a Saturday night of partying or studied for upcoming finals, ISU golfers Swanson and Curtis Foster laid unconscious next to mile marker 185, two miles outside Grinnell.

Around 3 a.m. on May 2, Swanson apparently fell asleep at the wheel, veering into the median, hitting a U-turn embankment and sending Foster’s red Chevy Lumina end over end.

The two had played 27 holes of golf the day before the accident — nine in Oelwein and 18 in Independence — before heading to Iowa City to meet Foster’s friends. It was 2 a.m. before they knew it, and, with final exams beginning Monday, they agreed to make the two-hour drive to Ames in order to get up early Sunday and begin studying. They were also looking forward to Sunday night’s barbecue dinner at the home of head coach Jay Horton; he had just purchased a new grill, and the whole team was invited.

“Tyler asked me if I wanted to go, and I didn’t care either way,” Foster said. “We could have slept on the floor at my buddy’s place, but we said, ‘Let’s just go.'”

Foster and Swanson were best friends; they roomed together and often split Gumby’s “Two for Tuesday” pokey stick deal. They had been teammates for only one season after Foster transferred from New Mexico, but they had similar family backgrounds working for their fathers. Swanson, growing up in Clinton, a blue-collar town of on the banks of the Mississippi River, worked for his dad’s propane business. Foster, from Independence, manned the sheep farm.

There, they learned the value of hard work, which carried over to the golf course. When they were 16 years old, before they had known each other, they tied for 10th at the Pepsi Little People’s golf tournament, in Quincy, Ill., one of the largest youth tournaments in the Midwest.

But things change. In one moment, everything changed. Eyewitness accounts say Swanson was thrown at least 75 feet from the vehicle while Foster was thrown about 25 feet away. Neither was wearing a seatbelt.

Foster, asleep in the passenger seat when the accident occurred, woke up feeling damp from the dew on the grass. He thought it was a dream until he felt pain in his lower back. With dried blood covering his face from a bloody nose and a large scrape from his Adam’s apple to his chin, he realized he had bitten a hole through his bottom lip. He felt the air blow onto his chest during a heavy exhale. Blood had already dried on Foster’s face and in his throat, leading him to believe he was unconscious for 10 to 15 minutes.

Foster’s back was throbbing from a compression fracture in his L2 vertebrae. Doctors said the force of the landing “crushed his L2 vertebrae like a pop can,” making it half the size of the others.

The red Lumina was in similar shape. The car looked as if it had been put through a trash compactor, Foster said — it wasn’t so much damaged on the sides as it was from bumper to bumper, both of which hardly remained still attached.

“My guess is that it flipped end over end two or three times,” Foster said.

Foster rolled to his stomach before crawling on his hands and knees. Yelling for Swanson, he struggled back to the car. All he heard was passing vehicles.

He prayed.

He tried to put his pain behind him.

Foster thought Swanson was still inside or that he could find a cell phone to call for help. Upon reaching the smoking wreck, he was startled by a voice.

“Stay put and don’t move.”

It was the trucker; his bright flashlight blinded Foster at first. The trucker had a foreign accent, but Foster could understand him. The trucker approached aggressively. He seemed wrapped in the moment, Foster said, and after seeing the damage done to the car, the trucker was scared of what he might find. He kept telling Foster to lie down, that the ambulance was on its way.

“I told him there was another kid out there,” Foster said. “He didn’t think I knew what I was talking about. He looked briefly and couldn’t find anyone else.”

Mike Wilwol, an off-duty paramedic, saw the trucker’s flashlight and thought there was a cop in the median, but drawing nearer, realized something wasn’t right. He pulled over and ran to the scene. CDs, golf clubs, shoes, balls and gloves were strewn everywhere.

“It was just a disaster,” said Wilwol, who was accompanied by two other EMTs on their way home to Cedar Rapids from Des Moines.

Wilwol ordered the trucker to keep looking for Swanson and called 911 to request that an air ambulance remain on standby in case another person was out there. Although Foster was shaken up, Wilwol never questioned him.

“You treat what he is saying as the truth,” Wilwol said. “It was just incredibly dark to be able to see anything. It seemed like a while before the trucker found [Swanson], but it was probably only about two minutes.”

With Foster in the care of the technicians, Wilwol sprinted over to Swanson, who was face down in the damp ground next to the pavement.

Wilwol couldn’t help but think about how bad things would have been if he had flown a few inches farther toward the yellow line. Squatting next to him, he attempted to converse, but Swanson was unconscious. With extreme care and support for Swanson’s neck and spine, Wilwol lifted his head and tried to open an airway. Blood, saliva and snot covered Swanson’s face.

Noticing he was starting to breathe, Wilwol continued to support Swanson’s head while calling 911 again to verify that the ambulance was on its way and to warn the emergency personnel that another person had been found and he was critical. Five minutes later, the ambulance arrived.

Swanson and Foster were taken to the same room at Grinnell Medical Center. Only a sheet separated them. Foster could hear doctors and nurses fight to keep Swanson alive. The situation didn’t seem real.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said.

“It sounded like they were trying to get a tube down his throat. I could hear lot of choking. I could hear him fighting back … flailing around.”

Worry never left Foster’s mind. All he could do was ask how Swanson was. Instead of hearing good news or any news, he was told to calm down.

“They were sick of me asking questions,” Foster said. “I wanted updates, but I couldn’t get them. When they don’t tell you anything, you don’t think things are well.”

Swanson was airlifted to University Hospitals in Iowa City.

Foster stayed behind for another 45 minutes, but he, too, would be airlifted to Iowa City in order to see a neural surgeon and get additional X-rays. Before leaving, he was approached by a police officer who asked him questions about the accident. The officer administered a Breathalyzer test, which Foster passed.

As Foster took off in the helicopter for Iowa City, the sun began to rise.

For Swanson, the next day and following hours would be critical. He wouldn’t be studying for finals as planned.

Editor’s note: Today’s print edition refers to an online presentation of Tyler’s story. Due to technical issues, the finishing touches are still being put on this presentation, but it will be posted as soon as it is finished.