CHEAT LAKE — After a resident fell down the hillside from Lower Rockley Road last month, locals say they are concerned about the safety of the road for emergency vehicles.
He believes his fall was caused by the road slipping and crumbling.
A West Virginia Division of Highways spokesperson said they are aware of the road’s condition, but because more highly traveled roads need work, Lower Rockley is not a top priority. Also, there is an alternate route to get into the community, and that makes repairing a slip less of a priority.
The fall
John Groom, a resident of the Rockley Road community, said he was walking his dogs one February morning.
“I was coming from the house, just down over the hill, and I was walking my dogs,” he said. “Normally it’s not an issue, but for whatever reason, they went down into the woods, and I kept walking, thinking they would come up.”
Groom said the dogs had a hard time scaling the hill because of wet conditions, which had caused a portion of the road to give way.
One dog kept falling as she attempted to climb back t the road, he said.
“So, I reached down and grabbed her by the collar, and I felt my feet give way. I cracked the back of my head, and I proceeded to fall — I didn’t measure it, but I’m assuming — like 50-60 feet down,” Groom said.
He also had a hard time getting back on the roadway.
“I don’t remember how long I was down there. I kept trying to crawl,” he said. “If I was thinking straight, I would have walked parallel to where the dog did and gotten on flat ground, or flat as I could ground. But, I was a little out of it. I kept trying to get up, and I remember just falling and falling.”
Groom said he called an Uber because he knew he should go to the hospital for his injuries — cuts in addition to the head injury.
“At first, I fell down, and I thought I just had a bloody nose. I walked back to the house, and I must have been in shock. I immediately got in the shower. I didn’t even look in the mirror,” he said.
He realized he was bleeding from more than his nose and called the Uber.
“I started getting changed, and by the time I get done, I saw my clothes were all bloody again. So, I canceled the Uber. I thought no one in their right mind would pick me up looking like this. So, I called Charlie and asked him to take me.”
Charles Corwin, a neighbor, said when he saw Groom, he knew they needed to call an ambulance. He had the ambulance meet them at Beth Haven Baptist Church, at the top of Lower Rockley Road’s hill, because he was concerned about the ambulance making it down the road.
“From the way [he] was talking, and he said he was throwing up, I thought he’s got a concussion or a traumatic brain injury,” he said. “[He] was out of it. I was going to take him to the hospital, but I was afraid he was too bad. I called the ambulance and they met us up there. I was afraid for them to come down here.”
Concern for others
Corwin said he is concerned emergency vehicles will have to come by Rockley Road, the upper branch of the road, and that could add time to getting someone to a hospital.
“This is your quickest artery here,” he said. “If you go the other way, it probably takes twice as long,” Corwin said.
“Not all of us are young out here. My wife has a heart condition. She’s a retired Realtor, and I have to watch her. If there would ever be an emergency, we have plans to go out the back way, up the hill. If you had to rush, if they had come to try to get John [Groom], it would have taken them another 15 minutes to get down the road.”
Groom agreed the road conditions are a concern for emergency vehicles.
“It’s the same with my mom,” he said. “My mom is in her late 60s, early 70s, and she has issues with her heart as well. It scares the hell out of me. If we were to get a bad snow and something were to happen or even without the snow, it would be a long time for someone to respond to something like that.”
Groom said he thought the condition of the road was a contributing factor in his accident.
“You can see where I fell,” he said. “It’s just a bunch of new dirt, and every time it rains, it just keeps washing away, washing away on that edge. It’s just like the potholes. Each time it rains, they just get a little bit bigger. They freeze up, expand and just get worse and worse and worse.”
Brent Walker, the senior communicators director for the state Division of Highways, said he had made the district aware of the concerns.
“At this point, due to the over 70 slips and slides in Monongalia County alone, the West Virginia Division of Highways has no plans for any upgrades or major improvements on Lower Rockley Road,” he said, “although, from a safety standpoint, we are always willing to review.
“With the amount of rain we have had, it is not surprising that hillsides across the state are saturated, causing multiple slips and slides. Any routine maintenance will be addressed per our Core Maintenance Plan.”
