A Missouri great-grandfather was killed in front of his wife of 50 years by a 45-pound rock that crashed through the Jeep they were riding in while on vacation.
Rex Schowengerdt, 73, was struck by the rock that fell from Glacier National Park in Montana on July 11, suffering a “catastrophic” brain injury before he died five days later, his family said on GoFundMe.
“It wasn’t even that big of a rock,” his daughter Amy Prince told the Flathead Beacon.
“There’s nothing that could have stopped that rock from falling. It was a freak, horrible thing.”
Schowengerdt — a father of two, grandfather of five and great-granfather of two — was sitting next to his wife, Chris, in the back of the Jeep and “slumped” into her once struck, their daughter said.
“Mom said when she looked over, dad had a smile on his face,” she said of her dad’s joy at his vacation.
“It hurt initially to hear, but it kind of brings peace to me as well in a way because Dad was where he wanted to be and he was happy and I know even before he left, he was happy.”
The retired couple had driven more than 1,300 miles from Kansas City, Missouri, to the tourist attraction he had only visited once before.
“Dad was so excited to go back there — even weeks before they were scheduled to go, he was jumping around,” his daughter Amy Prince, a counselor, told the Flathead Beacon.
Schowengerdt’s sister and brother-in-law had met up with the couple at Glacier National Park, and they drove down Logan Pass – the highest point on the Going-to-the-Sun road, 6,646 feet above sea level — with Schowengerdt in the back of the Jeep, sitting next to his wife, when the 45-pound rock fell.
The rock crushed Schowengerdt’s skull and pushed the bone into his brain stem.
He was airlifted to a hospital and was put into intensive care, where he died five days after the accident.
The outdoors enthusiast died the day before organ donation surgery was about to take place, Prince revealed.
“In the end, his eyes and tissues were able to be donated, and my mom later received a letter from World Vision sharing that his donation saved the vision of two people,” she said.
“That brought a small measure of comfort in the middle of so much heartbreak.”
Schowengerdt was cremated because the costs of moving his body from Montana to Missouri were too high. A celebration of life is set to be held Friday.
“I don’t want Dad forgotten, and I don’t want his life to be meaningless,” Prince said.
“He was a valuable person. For my kids, that was Grandpa. For me and my brother, that’s Dad. And for my mom, that’s her husband of 50 years.”
Schowengerdt’s death was the first fatality on the 50-mile route since 2019 when a 14-year-old Utah girl died when rocks shattered the rear windshield and top of the car she was traveling in.
The tragedy came almost 21 years after one of Prince’s children nearly died in a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The car they were traveling in flipped several times, she revealed.
