FeedsSupervisor and wife involved in rollover auto accident
CLARIFICATION APPENDED
The first couple of Canton Township are counting themselves lucky after surviving a rollover accident that totaled a township-owned vehicle June 23.
Canton Supervisor Tom Yack rolled his township-supplied GMC Envoy when he swerved to avoid a family of waterfowl in the northbound lanes of US-23 near Whitmore Lake.
Yack and his wife, Barb, were on their way to Trustee Todd LaJoy’s wedding in Portland.
Barb Yack was taken to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor with head and back injuries, but X-rays and CT scans were negative.
“I’m sure they had a lot to talk about at the wedding,” said Tom Yack.
The Yacks were driving in the right-most lane of the freeway when the car in front of them swerved suddenly.
That car missed hitting several animals—either ducks or geese, according to Yack—and continued safely up the highway.
The Yacks weren’t so lucky.
“I quickly moved to the right, and with an SUV, I went on the gravel (shoulder) and the back end started to fishtail,” said Yack.
Yack completely lost control of the car and careened into a ditch at about 50 mph, he said.
The car rolled once, spewing glass and dirt and crumpling the hood.
When the car came to a rest, Yack had a few cuts from broken glass but noticed his wife had more substantial injuries.
“We were so fortunate because across the freeway at the rest area was a National Guard unit coming back from Grayling,” he said.
A medic with the unit ran to the scene of the accident and made sure Barb Yack stayed conscious until an ambulance arrived.
She was released from the hospital later in the day.
The supervisor is one of three individuals under township policy who take government cars home and are allowed to use them for personal use. The other two are John Santomauro, executive director of public safety and operations and Mike Rorabacher, the fire chief.
Yack said he keeps track of non-official use of the car, which had about 65,000 total miles logged at the time of the crash.
“Anything beyond (official business) we have to reimburse the township at the IRS rate for personal use,” said Yack.
He said he will ask the township board of trustees at the July 10 meeting to approve the purchase of a replacement car through a vehicle cooperative program. After the rollover accident, he said he may opt for a more stable crossover model.
In the interim, Yack is cruising the township in a 2007 Ford Crown Victoria, an unmarked Canton police vehicle that will eventually replace an older patrol car. It doesn’t have any emergency lights, but the body type is unmistakable.
“People slow down when I’m around,” he said.
While thankful nobody was seriously injured, Yack said he should have hit the birds.
“You hate to do that, but you put so many people at risk” by avoiding them, said Yack.
CLARIFICATION: Previous versions of this story incorrectly stated that Yack’s car rolled over several times in the accident. It actually rolled just once. We regret the error and have corrected this online version of the story.
