Pleasant Hill senior returns to track after deadly crash
After a deadly River Road crash killed Easton Bounds, Pleasant Hill senior Ryan Thomas climbed back to the 100-meter dash and the state-title conversation.
A crash at River Road and Beacon Drive in Eugene changed Ryan Thomas’s life in seconds, but the Pleasant Hill senior spent the next year fighting to get back to the lane where she once ran as a state champion. The December 7, 2024 collision killed 13-year-old Easton Bounds and badly injured Thomas, who was pulled from the wreck with injuries that kept her out of competition for an entire season.
Eugene police said Central Lane 911 received the call at 3:57 p.m. about the two-vehicle crash. The wreck involved a Toyota Corolla carrying five teenagers and a Chevy Suburban with one occupant. Court records later said the Suburban driver was traveling 15 mph over the speed limit, while witnesses told police the Corolla convoy may have run a stop sign before the impact. The Corolla was struck on the driver’s side, and four other teenagers were critically injured.
Thomas spent two weeks in the hospital and needed about three months just to learn to walk again. Family members said her first question in the emergency room was whether she would be able to run again. She later said the emotional weight of the crash and its aftermath was harder than the physical recovery, especially as she grieved alongside the Bounds family.
Before the crash, Thomas had already established herself as one of Oregon’s top small-school sprinters. In May 2024, she won the OSAA Class 3A girls 100-meter dash in 12.49 seconds, and Pleasant Hill’s 4x100 relay team finished second at the state meet. But the crash cost her her junior season, and Thomas had to rebuild everything from the ground up, including strength, balance and confidence.
Her return gathered pace when she resumed training with Impact Athletics Track Club in Portland in July 2025. By spring 2026, she was back at elite speed, running 12.30 in the 100 and 25.65 in the 200 at the Oregon Relays. A later report said her season-best 100 had dropped to 12.08 at the Oregon State High Performance Meet, placing her back among the leading contenders for another Class 3A state title.
The story has remained painfully local in Pleasant Hill and Eugene. Easton Bounds’s family has kept his memory visible, including after Steve Bounds rebuilt a roadside memorial that had been vandalized in 2026. For Thomas, the return to the track has carried the weight of loss, recovery and unfinished business, with her final high-school season turning into one more chapter in a community still living with the crash on River Road.
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