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Close Call At Dead-Man’s Curve

	by Tim Robison Moapa Valley Progress Dead Man’s curve almost claimed another victim on the morning of Friday, January 25. Mesquite resident and physician at Mohave Family Practice in Logandale, Dr. Robert Parker, was on his way to work. According to State Troopers at the scene, Parker fell asleep at the wheel of his vehicle and veered to the right of the highway as he was traveling into the Lower Valley.	The vehicle of Dr. Robert Parker of Mohave Family Practice in Logandale came to rest at the bottom of a small hill after careening several hundred feet off the road near Dead Man’s Curve in Moapa Valley. According to State Troopers at the scene Parker had lost control of his vehicle after falling asleep at the wheel.
	The sound of the dirt and rocks at the side of the road woke Parker up and, startled, he over-corrected his vehicle traveling across the left lane and onto the left shoulder of the road. Parker’s vehicle then shot down the left shoulder of the highway. At times his left wheels were off the side of the edge of a precipice. At several points during this long drive down the left shoulder if Parker’s vehicle turned the slightest bit more to the left he would have flown off into the ravine. Eventually Parker, not able to right his vehicle, went off the road. Fortunately, for Parker it was at a point where there was an edge to the road and a slope on the Hill. Parker’s vehicle tore down the hill slamming into a gully, jumping over that it sped over a rise in the ground and came crashing to a halt at the bottom of the wash. The vehicle’s airbags deployed and Parker was able to climb out of the car on his own. He complained that his head and lower back hurt and an ambulance was summoned to take him to the hospital. Parker, who works with Mesquite Medical Associates, insisted that the ambulance take him to Mesa View in Mesquite instead of a hospital in Las Vegas. Special thanks to officer Dan Swanson for tipping us off to this, and so many other, important stories.