Fallen heroes of Highway Patrol

Inter Lake editorial

It defies the odds.

Three times in the past 18 months, tragedy has struck for the Montana Highway Patrol in the Flathead Valley.

So for the third time in an all-too-short period, the community at large and the law-enforcement community gathered Tuesday for a massive outpouring of support for an officer struck down in the line of duty.

What are the odds that the Highway Patrol, which lost only four officers on duty during its first 72 years of operation, now mourns three departed troopers in a span of months?

Before David Graham died in October 2007, the Highway Patrol had gone almost 30 years without a death on duty.

But first Graham, then Evan Schneider less than a year later and now Mike Haynes last week became victims of horrific head-on crashes. They died at accident sites within a few miles of each other in the Flathead Valley.

Haynes, a father of two young children, has become the latest grim addition to the Highway Patrol's pantheon of fallen heroes.

He was on traffic patrol in the middle of the night south of Kalispell on March 23. It's a lonely and dangerous duty, with that danger underscored by the drunken driver zooming at more than 100 mph who plowed into Haynes' patrol car.

For a while, there was hope, as Haynes initially survived and people prayed that he would not be added to the toll of troopers. But the prayers turned to tears when Haynes succumbed to his injuries on Friday.

The death of Mike Haynes reminds us (as did the passing of Schneider and Graham) that every day, at all hours of the day, the men and women of the Highway Patrol put themselves in harm's way.

These three young troopers performed the final, ultimate duty while they were working to keep the highways safe for the rest of us.

Their ultimate sacrifices cannot be minimized, nor can the loss to the community be exaggerated.

Coming soon after another crash took the lives of a pregnant mom and her teenage son, Haynes' accident reminds us of the fragility of life and the need to be careful on the highways.