WOODSTOCK — The father of a 19-year-old college student whose body was recovered at the bank of the Ottauquechee River on Saturday thinks his son might have suffered a head injury and been disoriented when he walked away from the scene of a car crash on Route 4 the prior night.
A preliminary medical examiner’s report scheduled to be completed this week might shed light on the death of Ben Johnsen, a 2024 graduate of Woodstock Union High School, accomplished alpine skier and sophomore at Rutgers.
His death occurred sometime after police responded late Friday night to a report of a vehicle that had crashed into a tree. Emergency personnel arrived at the accident scene but found no sign of the driver.
“He was a very loving young man,” Bruce Johnsen, Ben’s father, told the Valley News in an interview. “There’s been an enormous outpouring from the community. And every single person says the same thing: what a great kid. And how much he cared for everybody else; how much he loved everybody else.”
Bruce Johnsen said his son, who was home in Hartland for the holidays from Rutgers in New Brunswick, N.J., where he was studying finance, was “into physical health, exercise and taking care of himself. He was very perseverant. He persevered in his alpine skiing. He persevered as an Eagle Scout … and real clean cut.”
Woodstock Police said they received a report of a car crash shortly after 11 p.m. on Route 4 near Britton Lane in Woodstock. When police got to the scene, a short distance west of the Taftsville bridge, they found a 2013 Infiniti sedan “off the roadway” and “crashed into a tree,” according to a news release Woodstock police issued Saturday night.
Ben Johnsen was not at the crash scene and a search of the area by police and fire personnel in the overnight hours failed to locate him.
On Saturday afternoon, 17 hours later, Johnsen’s body was discovered on a bank of the Ottauquechee River near Old River Road and Rolling Ridge Drive on the other side of the river across from the crash site.
How Johnsen came to be on the other side of Ottauquechee River is not known and police have not offered a possible explanation, frustrating Johnsen’s family members as they have sought answers.
“It is an active, ongoing investigation,” Sgt. Chris O’Keeffe, interim chief of Woodstock Police Department, said to the Valley News on Tuesday afternoon.
No determination has been made as to the cause of the crash, but “speed does appear to have been a factor,” he added. Foul play is not suspected.
As for how Johnsen’s body ended up where it did, O’Keeffe called it an “interesting question”: “We may never know the answer.”
Bruce Johnsen theorizes his son might have suffered a head injury in the crash and became disoriented as he sought help. When Bruce Johnsen inspected the wrecked vehicle on Saturday he found the inside rearview mirror broken off from the windshield with the glass stuck to the base. The father thinks his son’s head might have made impact with the rearview mirror in the crash, the sheer force of which cracked the glass.
He also found his son’s cellphone in the vehicle.
Bruce Johnsen theorized his son saw the lights of a large horse barn along River Road on the other side of the river and proceeded in that direction for help.
In order to do so, Ben Johnsen would have first had to walk down an embankment, cross a rail trail and walk through a field to the river’s edge, a distance of about one-quarter of a mile, estimated O’Keeffe.
The Ottauquechee is about a one or two feet in depth in the area that Ben Johnsen would have had to wade through it to the other side.
“He could have had a subdural hematoma or something and he made it that far and then collapsed,” Bruce Johnsen said.
Bruce Johnsen said his son was a fitness enthusiast and earlier in the day had gone to the athletic club at the Woodstock Inn to exercise. Afterward, he texted his parents that he was headed over to the home of a high school friend where a group of close friends home for the holiday were getting together.
“Ben had a large network of friends in the community here, all connected through skiing and Boy Scouts,” Bruce Johnsen said. “He was like family to three different families.”
His son left his friend’s house around 11 p.m. and was driving home when the crash occurred, Bruce Johnsen said.
After police informed Bruce Johnsen that his vehicle had been found crashed along Route 4 but his son could not be located, he drove to the friend’s house to tell his son’s friends what had happened.
He declined to speculate whether alcohol may have been a factor in the crash.
But Bruce Johnsen said his son “kind of liked to drive fast. I was always telling him to drive slower.”
On Saturday, he inspected the site of the crash and saw skid marks in the road, which bends slightly near the impact point. The posted speed limit at the section of where the accident occurred is 35 miles-per-hour. Bruce Johnsen theorizes his son lost control of the car as he entered the bend at a high rate of speed.
In addition to a passion for skiing and scouting, Ben Johnsen, an only child, had a keen interest in finance and had opened his own stock trading account at Charles Schwab. He had a separate account for investing in crypto currencies.
“I think the reason he went down to New Jersey (for college) is that he wanted to be near Wall Street,” Bruce Johnsen said.
A memorial service for Ben Johnsen is being planned for later this month at Saskadena Six ski mountain in South Pomfret.
“He had the whole world in front of him,” Bruce Johnsen said.