"For those that respond to these calls and are first on scene, these images never leave." Those are the words of Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder, who thanked area search & rescue crews following a heartbreaking Thanksgiving weekend crash that took the lives of an Air Force family of four.

Sheriff Linder began by offering his condolences to the Dean family in the below message also posted to the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Facebook page:

On Friday November 23rd at @ 9:07pm, Deputies responded to the area of mile marker 6 on Interstate 94 for a law enforcement assist. A family of four had been reported as being overdue for a Thanksgiving trip. The families phone was tracked to this location where deputies located their vehicle. All four were found deceased upon arrival. The Montana Highway Patrol is investigating this incident as a fatality crash.

On behalf of the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office, we would like to send our condolences to the family and friend's of the victims. Sheriff Linder would like to thank Oren with the Yellowstone County Search and Rescue Team and Worden Fire, who "Went above and beyond in the recovery of these people".

Lastly, keep our First Responders in your thoughts and prayers. For those that respond to these calls and are first on scene, these images never leave.

Here's the story from the Associated Press:

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) — The Grand Forks Air Force Base says the North Dakota family killed in a crash in Montana was a U.S. Air Force family.

The air base says 25-year-old Staff Sgt. Anthony James Dean was assigned to the 69th Maintenance Squadron. Authorities say Dean, his 25-year-old wife Chelsi Dean and their two daughters, 5-year-old Kaytlin and 20-month-old Avri, were killed in the Thanksgiving crash .

Anthony and Chelsi Dean were natives of Caldwell, Idaho, and lived in Manvel, North Dakota, after being assigned to the Grand Forks air base where Anthony Dean worked as an RQ-4 Global Hawk crew chief.

The Montana Highway Patrol discovered the crash scene Friday night after searching for the missing family since Thanksgiving. The patrol says their Toyota 4Runner went off Interstate 94 near Huntley, Montana.

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