The only survivor of a Casper-area drunk-driving crash that killed three people in 2022 still replays the scene in her head every day.
The driver, Steven Spearman of Casper, was sentenced to between 18 and 20 years in prison, according to a sentencing order filed Friday in Natrona County District Court. He'd pleaded guilty earlier to three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and one count of causing a serious bodily injury by driving under the influence.
That order may at least partially close a nearly three-year chapter of pain, chaos and grief for the young woman who survived Spearman’s drunken driving crash, but not unscathed.
Tahayla Kohtala was 18 on May 7, 2022, and getting ready to graduate from high school. She and two longtime friends, Justin Robles, who was 19, and Dalton Foos, who was 22, had been at a bonfire party the night before, along with 17-year-old Abigail Helms.
Kohtala and Helms didn’t know each other well, but had sparked a new friendship that night, Kohtala told Cowboy State Daily on Monday.
Steven Spearman, now 27, was driving a borrowed Toyota Rav4 down Interstate 25 that morning, with a blood-alcohol concentration of at least 0.173%.
He lost control and crashed into the center median cable barrier on the driver’s side, spun around and came to rest facing south in the northbound lanes, according to court documents.
His hazard lights were on, but no other lights were active, says the case affidavit.
Foos was driving a GMC Yukon north so he could take Kohtala home. He and his best friend Robles chatted in the front seats, while Kohtala and Helms got to know each other in the back.
‘My Mama Will Always Answer’
“Oh shit!” Foos yelled, just before swerving to dodge the Toyota.
The Yukon rolled five times. Kohtala said she counted the rolls in her head and urged herself to go limp. All four people were ejected from the Yukon.
Kohtala lost consciousness but woke to find herself on the ground, with her phone within arm’s reach.
First she called 911.
Next she called her mom.
“When you’re in a situation like that, the only person whose voice you want to hear is your mom’s,” Kohtala told Cowboy State Daily.
It was 4:43 a.m., but her mom answered.
“My mama will always answer,” she said.
Kohtala told her mother she was being loaded onto an ambulance and was headed to the hospital. Her mom said she loved Kohtala and would see her very soon.
Also on scene, Kohtala said she heard two first responders call out the words, “Two black on scene!”
She kept trying to tell them no, there were four people in the vehicle: There should be one more person out on the roadside. But she was also concussed, with a piece of glass embedded in her head.
That Scream
Then she heard the scream.
“I think it was the most gut-wrenching scream I’ve ever heard in my life,” said Kohtala.
It was Helms.
First responders rushed to Helms and found her about 8 feet behind where they’d found Kohtala, the latter recalled.
The three young people, including Helms, died on scene.
Meanwhile, instead of rendering aid to those thrown from the GMC, Spearman was pacing around the barrow ditch and talking on the phone with his on-and-off girlfriend, court documents say.
A truck driver who’d witnessed the crash confronted Spearman and asked if he’d been drinking.
Spearman said he had, and also said something had malfunctioned with the Toyota’s front end.
Kohtala was rushed to the hospital, where she said she came within a fraction of a chance of having her leg amputated, but medical personnel were able to save it.
Since the crash, she’s had two knee surgeries to repair two knee ligaments and her meniscus, and she’s preparing to get a third.
In a twist of fate, she later learned that Spearman was a friend of her brother’s who had even spent time living at their family home.
Wouldn’t Wish It
People keep telling Kohtala she should be grateful to have survived, she said.
But it haunts her.
“I know for a fact I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody,” she said. “It’s not something I’m proud of, not something I want.”
Every day she remembers the friends and new acquaintance she lost. And every day she remembers the crash, she said.
The family members of the three who died wanted to go over what had happened with her, after the crash.
But when she approached each of the three mothers and fathers, all she wanted to do was apologize, she said.
“The only words that came out of my mouth was to apologize — that I was the kid that made it out. Because there were four families sitting at that hospital hoping it would be their child that would walk out of those doors,” she said. “I can’t imagine what those parents thought when it wasn’t me.”
Kohtala said she’s been in counseling for three years, and it’s helping. Telling her story over and over again helps too — not as perfect healing but in a way of making the story sound so familiar, she doesn’t react strongly to it every time she tells it.
My Kids
But there’s a ray of light to remembering these things.
“I know it’ll be an experience worth sharing when it comes to my children growing up,” said Kohtala, as she comforted a fussing baby who kept reaching for her phone during the interview.
She has one kid now and is in a committed relationship. She wants four children, she said.
“Just the possibility of what them drinking and driving could do, and to always be diligent when driving,” she said. “You might not be the stupid driver on the road, but somebody out there is.”
Kohtala also voiced discomfort with some of the comments she’s seen surface on social media under news links about the crash.
On the one hand, she’s been uncomfortable with some of the attacks on Spearman’s family, since Spearman is still “somebody’s dad and somebody’s son and somebody’s brother,” she said.
Spearman’s mother had written a letter to the Natrona County District Court ahead of sentencing, noting that it wasn’t definitively disproven that the Toyota had malfunctioned, and noting that Foos and the other youths had been at a bonfire party involving underage drinking just before the crash. She wrote of his devotion to his children, and his many efforts to manage his life and tragic personal situations before the night of the crash.
On the other hand, said Kohtala, she said she finds commenters who minimize some light drinking and driving, as if having “a couple beers” and driving is OK.
“When an ugly situation happens, it doesn’t need to be overshadowed by more ugly comments,” she said.
Now Kohtala and her boyfriend live in Ohio. He jumped at a job opportunity there, and she’s been grateful for that, though she was born and raised in Casper.
“I couldn’t take it,” said Kohtala. “I’d see their faces everywhere.”
“It still hurts, knowing what happened, and I still cry a lot of nights,” she said. “But no matter how many tears are shed, they’re not coming back”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
