Before Robert Saad left for work early Friday morning, he kissed his girls and said he loved them.
“Call me when you get up,” he told his wife, but when Neshako Kay Saad woke later that morning, she couldn’t reach him.
The 39-year-old Idaho Falls truck driver was on his way to a dump-truck job in Jackson, Wyoming, when his Hyundai Santa Fe went off U.S. Highway 89 and plunged about 50 feet into the Snake River Canyon.
His car sat unnoticed in the river for at least a couple of hours before it was reported to emergency responders. By the time the Alpine Fire Department arrived at mile marker 131, they found Saad’s badly damaged white vehicle siting in about 18 inches of water, the agency reported at the time.
Saad leaves behind his wife of three years and their two daughters, ages 2½ and 11 months.
For Neshako, who estimates she traveled about 180,000 miles beside her husband during their five years together, the silence was unusual.
“We couldn’t go a few hours without talking to each other,” she told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday morning.
A Big Teddy Bear
At home, the man who spent long days driving trucks was a hands-on father who played with remote-control cars alongside his kids and made the most of his time with them, his wife said.
Neshako described him as “loud, obnoxious, and a loving man."
At 6-foot-6 and about 400 pounds, Robert was someone his family called “the big teddy bear,” she said.
“He always put himself last, and he would do anything to help anyone, even a stranger that was going through a difficult time,” she said.
He loved motorcycles. Riding them was something the couple enjoyed together early in their relationship, before their daughters were born.
Much of their life together revolved around simple things: cooking at home, visiting family and being together whenever Robert was off the road.
“Family was his biggest thing,” she said.
Miles Together
Robert was originally from Reno, Nevada, and Neshako from Groton, Connecticut, though both had spent most of their lives in Idaho.
His grandfather, whom he called “Papa,” had driven trucks for years. Robert followed him into the profession, earning his commercial driver’s license about 13 or 14 years ago, Neshako said.
Before they became parents, she accompanied him on long trips.
Leaving Idaho, he often hauled potatoes. The return cargo depended on what was available wherever he delivered the load.
Country music helped fill the miles, she said.
Kenny Chesney’s “Me and You” and Luke Combs’ “Better Together" hold a special place in Nashako's heart now that her husband is gone.
Life on the road grew more complicated after their daughters arrived, "But we just learned to navigate it the best we could," she said.
They made frequent phone and video calls. When he came home, he was ready to be a husband and father.
“He cherished every moment with his kids,” she said.
In March, the family took its first trip together in his over-the-road truck, bringing both little girls along.
The Smoke Show
His work in Jackson meant early starts and long days.
Robert would leave Idaho Falls around 4 or 4:30 a.m. and sometimes not return until between 7 and 9 p.m., Neshako said.
She worried about the drive and the mountain roads his work took him through, even as she trusted his ability behind the wheel.
“It was nerve-racking, but I knew he was a damn good driver, and he knew what he was doing,” she said.
He took particular pride in a black dump truck with purple lights that they called “the Smoke Show.”
“Everybody knew that truck up there,” she said.
Neshako said his employer retired the truck after his death. She plans to keep his trucking hat and a shirt as reminders of the work he loved.
Robert wasn’t driving the dump truck when he crashed. He was in the family’s personal vehicle, headed to work.
Investigation Continues
The Wyoming Highway Patrol’s preliminary summary lists the crash at 5:30 a.m. Friday on U.S. Highway 26/89 near milepost 130.83 in Lincoln County.
Robert’s Hyundai Santa Fe was traveling north when it left the roadway to the right and struck the guardrail. It continued along the guardrail to its end, dropped about 50 feet down the steep hillside, rolled and came to rest in the river, the summary says.
The patrol reported clear weather and dry pavement.
The summary does not list a possible contributing factor.
As Cowboy State Daily previously reported, Alpine Fire District received the call at 6:20 a.m. Responders found the vehicle below the highway, and crews used a raft to move Robert’s body to a nearby boat dock.
Neshako said the investigation was continuing when she last spoke with a state trooper.
She still wants to understand how her husband went over the edge.
“I want to know how it happened,” she said. “Why didn’t the rails protect that car from going over?”
Two Dreams
Robert’s death also leaves the family without its sole income earner.
Neshako had stayed home with their daughters, and now she is trying to manage funeral expenses and household bills while figuring out how to support two small children on her own.
A friend has organized a GoFundMe campaign to help the family with those costs.
Neshako still wants to pursue the plan she and Robert had been saving toward: nail technician school.
“I supported his truck dream, and he was supporting my nail dream,” she said.
For their daughters, she wants to preserve the everyday evidence of their father’s love — the calls, the time together and the effort he put into providing for them.
“His kids were his world,” she said. “Even though he was on the road a lot, there wasn’t a day that didn’t go by that he didn’t think of them.”
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
