Cheyenne resident Rivers Tabb could see the pickup coming toward his family Friday night, but at first nothing looked wrong.
It was in its lane. His fiancée, Lilian Robbind, was driving. Their two young children, ages 7 and 4, were in the back seat, and the family was pulling the camper they live in toward the Laramie area for a weekend in the mountains.
Then, at the last possible second, Tabb said the oncoming pickup swerved directly into their lane on Highway 230 southwest of Laramie..
“He almost — like he was playing chicken with me,” Tabb told Cowboy State Daily. “They were in their lane until I got right up on him, and then he drove into my lane at the last second.”
From the passenger side, Tabbs yanked the wheel — a maneuver he thinks may have saved all four of their lives.
“If I would have let him hit us head-on, we would all die,” Tabb said.
The pickup clipped the camper they were towing, sending the family's rig fishtailing and ripping apart the back and side of what Tabb says isn't merely their recreational vehicle.
It is also their home.
The other driver never stopped.
‘I Thought I Missed It’
The crash happened at about 10 p.m. Friday as the family was traveling from Cheyenne and past Laramie, Tabb said.
The family believes the other vehicle was a white Ford F-250 or F-350 Super Duty.
Tabb said the encounter happened so quickly that at first “I thought I missed it in time,” he said.
Shaken by the near head-on collision, they pulled over to collect themselves.
Then another vehicle traveling behind them stopped, too.
Tabb walked back to check on its occupants and saw its windshield was caved in.
The woman driving told him debris from the collision struck her windshield. She also had a child in her vehicle, Tabb said.
“I was like, ‘Well, I wonder if that was pieces of my camper that maybe hit her ,’” he said.
He walked back to inspect it.
“The whole back end was wiped out on my camper,” he said.
Their Home
Photos of the camper show extensive damage along its side and rear, with exterior panels and compartments torn open.
Tabb said the impact pushed in an entire wall, tore away skirting, ripped doors from the water heater compartment and gouged the side.
He doesn't believe it can reasonably be repaired.
Tabb has boarded over damaged areas and used silicone to seal holes left by the crash.
“That’s all I could really do,” he said. “We’re still living out of it. I mean, that’s our home. That’s all we have.”
The family had already been trying to save enough money to replace the camper and make it through the Wyoming winter, he said.
Now the hit-and-run has complicated those plans.
“We’re trying to make it through winter in the camper, and now we can’t because of the damage,” Tabb said. “It’s almost impossible trying to save money.”
The family has since launched a GoFundMe asking for help finding somewhere safe to live after the crash damaged the camper they call home.
A Clue Left Behind
The driver might have left behind one potentially important clue.
While cleaning up after the crash, Tabb said he found pieces of the other vehicle inside his younger son's sleeping area.
A part number on one of those pieces appears to correspond with a component used on certain 2017-2019 Ford F-250 or F-350 pickups, he said.
That has the family asking people to watch for a white Ford Super Duty with substantial damage to its driver's side.
Tabb believes the pickup could be missing or have damage to components including a headlight or mirror.
The family reported the crash to law enforcement, he said, but so far hasn't heard of any leads.
The Wyoming Highway Patrol confirmed that troopers responded to the crash.
Two Kids In The Back
What sticks with Tabb most isn't the camper.
It's how little separated his family from a head-on crash.
When the truck suddenly came across the centerline, there wasn't time to calculate whether swerving would send their vehicle into a ditch or cause the camper to roll.
There was only the instinct to get out of the way.
“Fight or flight,” Tabb said. “That’s all I really thought of at the moment, was to jerk the wheel. No matter what was there, I didn’t care if there was a ditch or anything.”
All four members of the family escaped without injury, but Tabb can't stop thinking about what could have happened had Lillian reacted even a fraction of a second later.
He wants whoever was driving the white pickup — or anyone who recognizes a suddenly damaged truck matching its description — to come forward.
“Getting justice is my main priority right now,” he said.
The family's Facebook plea was even more direct.
“You almost killed my entire family,” it says. “I had 2 sleeping babies in my backseat.”
Contact Kolby Fedore at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
