kem. WITNESS SH0CK: A patron recalls Iryna Zarutska serving him pizza just an hour earlier. – “She Had a Bad Feeling, Never Imagined It Would End Like This”

The neon sign above Roma’s Pizza & Grill still flickered when the news spread across Oakridge — that small, tight-knit town where everyone knows everyone, and tragedy travels faster than smoke.

Iryna Zarutska, 29, was gone. Just an hour before, she had been behind the counter, slicing through a pepperoni pizza, joking about how slow the night was. And then — nothing but sirens, a twisted guardrail, and a silence that hasn’t lifted since.

“She handed me my order, smiled, and said, ‘I’m heading home early tonight. Got this weird feeling… like the air’s too still. You know?’” recalls Michael Greene, a local schoolteacher and one of the last people to see her alive. “I laughed it off. I wish I hadn’t.”

In hindsight, those words now sound like something more than just a passing remark. They sound like a whisper from fate.

A Quiet Night Turns to Chaos

Friday evenings in Oakridge are usually calm. Families stroll through the park. Teenagers crowd the ice cream shop. And Roma’s, with its red-checkered tablecloths and smell of baked dough, is where everyone ends up.

But that night felt different. Even before tragedy struck, there was an unusual stillness in the air — the kind of quiet that makes you listen harder, that makes the hairs on your neck rise.

“I remember she kept wiping the counter, over and over, even when it was spotless,” said Daniela Ruiz, her coworker. “I asked if she was okay. She smiled, said she was fine, but her eyes were somewhere else.”

At 8:37 p.m., Iryna clocked out early — something she never did. “She said she was tired. Said she wanted to get home before the rain,” said Daniela. “She grabbed her bag, waved goodbye, and that was it.”

At 9:12 p.m., her car was found upside down along a quiet bend on Highway 19.

The Final Moments

Police reports describe the accident as a single-vehicle crash. No signs of alcohol. No high speed. Just a sudden swerve, as if she had tried to avoid something — or someone — in the road.

“The conditions were damp, visibility low,” said Officer James Halley. “But what stands out is the absence of any braking marks. It’s almost like she didn’t have time to react.”

Paramedics arrived within minutes. They found her seatbelt fastened, the airbags deployed — but it was too late.

The tragedy hit harder because of its timing. Iryna had just finished a 10-hour shift, planning to spend the weekend video-calling her parents in Lviv, Ukraine, whom she hadn’t seen since the war broke out. “She told me she was going to surprise them with the news that she’d saved enough to bring them here next spring,” Daniela said softly. “That dream died with her.”

From Lviv to Oakridge: A Story of Strength

To understand the weight of this loss, one must know who Iryna was — and what she had already survived.

Born in 1996 in Lviv, Iryna grew up amid laughter, art, and music. Her father was a math teacher; her mother, a florist. Then came 2022 — the year that tore her world apart. The Russian invasion forced her to flee, leaving everything behind except two suitcases and a small pendant her mother gave her.

“She told me that pendant was her anchor,” said Oksana Petrenko, her childhood friend. “It had a tiny engraving: ‘Still Sky.’ She said it reminded her to stay calm no matter what chaos surrounded her.”

When she arrived in the U.S., she barely spoke English. Yet within months, she became the smiling face at Roma’s — known for her laughter, her accent, and her ability to make anyone feel like family.

“She was a survivor in every sense,” said Tom Reynolds, the pizzeria’s owner. “She’d seen war, loss, fear. But she never brought bitterness with her — only warmth.”

The Uneasy Feeling

It’s impossible to ignore Iryna’s final words. The “weird feeling” she mentioned now haunts those who heard it.

“It wasn’t fear in her voice,” said Greene. “It was more like… resignation. Like she sensed something coming, and there was nothing she could do.”

Psychologists say such sensations — often described as “premonitions” — are not uncommon. Dr. Karen Lyle, a cognitive researcher at Emerson University, explains that heightened intuition can be the brain’s response to subtle environmental cues.

“Our subconscious picks up on changes — weather, pressure, sound — that we consciously overlook,” Lyle said. “When someone says they have a ‘bad feeling,’ it’s often the body’s early warning system, not mysticism.”

But friends of Iryna insist her intuition went deeper. “She used to say she could feel when something was off,” Oksana said. “She didn’t call it psychic — she called it human instinct sharpened by survival.”

Maybe that survival instinct — the same one that helped her escape a war zone — was trying to tell her something that night.

The Ripple Effect

The aftermath of Iryna’s death has rippled through Oakridge like an invisible wave. Flowers now cover the front steps of Roma’s Pizza. Someone taped a photo of her — smiling, holding a pizza peel — on the door. Beneath it, a handwritten note reads: “You made this place feel like home.”

“I can’t bring myself to take her name off the schedule,” Tom Reynolds admitted. “Every morning, I still write ‘Iryna — 12 to Close.’ It just doesn’t feel right not to.”

Customers remember her not just for her kindness, but for her lightness — the way she laughed at her own English mistakes, or how she always hummed old Ukrainian folk songs while cleaning tables.

“She used to give me free garlic knots whenever she saw I was tired,” said Greene. “She’d say, ‘You can’t solve the world’s problems on an empty stomach.’ It sounds silly, but that’s who she was — gentle, real, unpretentious.”

A Small Town, a Big Lesson

Oakridge is not the kind of place that forgets. Here, grief becomes communal — shared in casseroles, vigils, and whispered prayers. On the night after her death, hundreds gathered outside Roma’s, candles flickering against the October chill.

“We’ve lost more than a friend,” said Daniela, addressing the crowd. “We’ve lost a piece of our kindness.”

The town has since started a “Still Sky Fund”, named after Iryna’s pendant, to help other refugees rebuild their lives in the community. “It’s our way of keeping her dream alive,” Reynolds said. “She came here to find safety. Now she’s helping others find the same.”

The Questions That Linger

What makes this story resonate beyond Oakridge is not just the tragedy, but its eerie poetry — a survivor who escaped war, only to fall to fate in peace.

Was her “bad feeling” coincidence? Or something more? Could the stillness she sensed have been psychological — or supernatural?

Dr. Lyle offers a sober reminder: “We often seek meaning in randomness because it helps us cope. But meaning doesn’t need to be mystical. Sometimes, it’s found in how we remember — in the lessons tragedy leaves behind.”

For those who knew Iryna, that lesson is simple: listen to your instincts, cherish your days, and never underestimate the quiet moments.

A Legacy Etched in Light

Today, a mural of Iryna decorates the side of Roma’s Pizza. Her face is turned toward a painted horizon, the words “Still Sky — Forever Calm” arched above her. The air around it seems lighter — as if her warmth has seeped into the brick itself.

“I like to think she found peace,” Oksana said, standing before the mural. “She used to say the sky is always still above the storm. Maybe that’s where she is now — above it all, calm again.”

And for Michael Greene, the man who shared her final conversation, the memory remains sharp.

“I wish I’d told her to stay, to wait out that feeling. But maybe she was right — maybe the air was too still. Maybe she was just meant to go home, in a different way.”

He pauses, eyes glistening. “The world lost someone good that night. The kind of person who made everything — even pizza — feel sacred.”

The Stillness That Speaks

In a world rushing endlessly forward, Iryna Zarutska’s story stands as a quiet reminder: sometimes, the signs are there. Sometimes, we sense the end before it comes — not to escape it, but to face it with grace.

Her last words, simple and haunting, linger in Oakridge’s autumn air:
“Got this weird feeling… like the air’s too still.”

Now, every still night in that little town feels like her voice echoing through it — a warning, a whisper, a benediction.

Because maybe she was right.
Maybe the stillness was never just air.
Maybe it was the universe preparing to carry her home.