Smithville welder struck by suspected drunk driver from Iowa

Kaedon Phalp and his best friend, Hunter Hall, were trying to be good Samaritans on a spring evening in May when they stopped to help another driver on the side of the road. What they didn’t know, as they tried to help the driver out of a ditch near Weston, was that their lives were about to change.

As the couple tried to help the driver, Phalp, 20, was struck by an alleged drunk driver. Now, months later, Phalp is still trying to recover from serious injuries as he awaits some form of justice in court.

“Yeah, getting hit by that car was something. It hurt. It hurt a lot,” Phalp told The Star.

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A good deed, a life changing moment

On the evening of May 18, Phalp and Hall stopped in Phalp’s Ford F250 near H Highway in Platte County to help another motorist stuck in a ditch.

The two men first noticed something was wrong when a red Toyota came speeding over the hill. They tried to get the driver to stop, Hall said. When the car didn’t slow down, Phalp and Hall both dove for cover. Hall jumped into a ditch and Phalp tried to escape in his truck. Phalp was halfway to his truck when he was hit head-on.

“Kaedon was lying in the street,” Hall said. “He was screaming, ‘Help, help, I’m hurt, Hunter, I’m hurt.’ I walked over to him, put my hand on him and then ran away.”

Hall sprinted into the road to get help, while Phalp lay in the road unable to move. After hitting Phalp’s truck, the red Toyota pulled over “as if nothing had happened,” Hall said.

“I couldn’t move my legs, especially my left leg,” Phalp said. “My legs were just destroyed.”

The man who initially stopped the pair to help put a belt around Phalp’s leg in an attempt to stop the bleeding, Hall said.

The man who allegedly hit Phalp, identified as Gabriel Carey, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa, was praying with Phalp in the road, but Phalp said details of their conversation were sketchy. When an officer arrived at the scene, Carey was immediately taken to undergo a sobriety test, Hall said.

“It was one of those bewildered moments where he looks at the breathalyzer and shows it to him,” Hall said. “He said, ‘Do you know what the legal limit is?’ And immediately told him to turn around and get in the car.”

Carey was found to have had a blood alcohol level of 0.138, nearly seven times the legal limit for someone under 21, according to a court affidavit.

The driver told police he had been to a wedding reception before the crash, where he said he had consumed about four to five beers, according to the probable cause affidavit. The driver said he believed he had been drinking for nearly six hours, from 4:45 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The crash, however, occurred around 9:40 a.m.

Phalp suffered a fractured right femur, multiple pelvic fractures, a dislocated knee, a broken tibia, nerve damage and a torn PCL, MCL and ACL in his left leg, among other internal injuries, according to a GoFundMe set up by Hall’s sister, Amanda Eichinger. Phalp spent nearly a week in the intensive care unit of a local hospital.

“It was a day-by-day approach,” Hall said. “You’d get there one day and he was as close to his normal self, I mean as close as you can be for where you are, and then the next day he had another surgery and was out for a little bit.”

“If you met Kaedon, you loved Kaedon”

According to GoFundMe, Kaedon Phalp graduated from Smithville High School in 2022.

“There may have been people who didn’t like me, but there’s not a single person who didn’t like Kaedon,” Hall said. “When you met Kaedon, you loved Kaedon. He didn’t really have anyone who wasn’t friends with him, he was just friends with everyone.”

After graduating, Phalp worked to pay his way through welding school, according to GoFundMe. He was working about 60 hours a week at the time of the accident, he said.

“I’m always trying to go, go, go, go, go, and keep busy,” Phalp said. “And now, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit. It’s very different than what I’m used to.”

Phalp was living in an apartment with some friends before the crash and was excited to get started “in the real world,” he said.

“To know Kaedon is to love him,” the GoFundMe said. “Kaedon is the kind of person who would give you his shirt off, always willing to lend a helping hand.”

Even in the hospital, Phalp has made friends with his nurses and other residents in his unit. A sign in his room, written by a nurse, read, “Welcome Back!”

“There isn’t one I don’t know. Some of them are like friends,” Phalp said.

Carey was charged with driving under the influence, according to an arrest warrant. He pleaded not guilty on June 4, according to court records.

“It makes you feel bad, that’s really all I have to say about it,” Phalp said.

County prosecutors told Hall’s sister, Amanda Eichinger, the case could take one to three years.

“I’ve called a lot of lawyers, and from what it seems like, it’s pretty normal in a situation like this that they’re trying to plead not guilty,” Eichinger said. “But at the same time, he’s trying to get away with it on all counts.”

According to court documents, the first hearing in the case will not be until August.

The Road to Recovery

Phalp has undergone nine surgeries and has two more scheduled, he said. He has been in the hospital since the incident in May.

“It took some getting used to and stuff like that, but I have a lot of good people behind me and supporting me. That makes it a lot easier to be stuck here.”

Phalp has not been able to put weight on his leg since the accident and has been battling multiple infections, he said. Once Phalp starts feeling better after surgery, he will be transferred to a new one almost immediately, he said.

In the hospital, Phalp builds Lego and plays games like Crazy Eights to keep himself occupied. He also enjoys hanging out with friends, including Hall, who try to keep his environment “as normal as it used to be.”

“Honestly, I just try to distract myself,” Phalp said. “I guess just having friends here and stuff like that and just trying to keep my mind off of it. Sometimes it gets to me, I’ll be honest. Sometimes I get angry. I try to surround myself with good people here and that helps a lot.”

Phalp said the support he has received is “more than you could ever imagine.”

The GoFundMe for Phalp’s medical and legal expenses has been set up to help Phalp with the financial burdens he faces now and in the future once he leaves the hospital.

Phalp can’t return to his apartment because of his injuries, but he also knows he can’t get around his mother’s house in his wheelchair. The family is trying to find a rehabilitation center where Phalp can stay until he can use crutches, he said.

Despite the accident, Phalp said he is still looking to the future, hoping to eventually be able to weld again.

His friend’s sister knows that the accident, tragic as it was, could have ended very differently.

“This could have been a lot worse than it already is,” Eichinger said.