Three youths were heading home on US 131 from a weekend trip to northern Michigan, reports CBS News, when the driver, 17, crossed the center line and crashed the Saturn into a camper being hauled by a pickup truck. The driver, wearing a seat belt, escaped with only minor injuries, but Patrick Bement (at right in photo), 16, and Nathaniel Smith, 17, both unbuckled, were not so lucky. Smith was killed, Bement received major damage. Police at the scene found Bement’s identification near the body, which was ejected from the car, and believed the body to be his. Smith’s wallet and identification were in the trunk, and the cops believed it was Smith in the back seat with major head and facial injuries. Tragically, not so.
For days, one family kept a bedside vigil for a bandaged-up boy whom they believed was their badly injured 16-year-old relative. Meanwhile, the other family prepared to bury the boy they thought was their dead 17-year-old relative.
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