Dozens of cars must have passed before Wayne Adkins stopped, and that's the image he can't get out of his mind.
The faces of drivers who dodged to miss debris still haunt him. He was the person who stopped to find help for a stranger crumpled in a wrecked car cocked in a highway entrance ramp. He rushed to a gas station to ask a clerk to call 911.
He waited for rescue workers to arrive before heading home to Loveland early that morning, two days before Easter.
It was a simple Good Samari- tan tale. He retold it to his
friends half a dozen times that weekend before it really hit him. The words stuck in his throat when he sat down with a friend on that Sunday and repeated his story. He realized he was angry that so many people saw something wrong but kept going.
The man, who doesn't like to admit that he cries, broke down in tears.
Mr. Adkins, a musician, was thinking about his music about 2 a.m. on Good Friday. He was with a friend, and they had just left a downtown recording session with his band.
They stopped at SuperAmerica to make a phone call before pulling onto the northbound Interstate 275 ramp from Beechmont Avenue. Light rain fell as the headlights hit what looked like garbage spilled in the middle of the ramp.
Mr. Adkins, 37, quickly realized he was looking at the aftermath of a car wreck, and someone was trapped inside.
He found help within minutes, but he left without even knowing the driver's name.
In the days that followed, he combed his newspaper for her obituary. It wasn't there.
He called the Ohio State Highway Patrol and discovered her name was Tara Chandler. She was 21, and she was alive.
|
Chandler benefit
The family of Tara Chandler will hold a June 27 benefit dance at the American Legion Post 72, 4521 Weiner Lane, in Mount Carmel.
Tickets are $25 a couple or $15 for singles.
Wayne Adkins, a musician who stopped to help at the accident scene, will headline the event with his band, Crystal Axxe -- a mix of rock, blues and folk.
Donations can be sent to the Tara Chandler Hospital Fund, c/o any Star Bank location.
|
Police found red and yellow paint on her black Honda Civic and told Mr. Adkins it looked like a hit-and-run by a semi. She had alcohol in her system and wasn't wearing her seat belt. Investigators said it's impossible to tell exactly what happened.
Mr. Adkins felt some emotional connection to this woman he had never met. He wondered what she looked like. He wondered whether she had any children. He wondered why he had been the one to find her.
He called University Hospital, where she was in critical condition, and talked to her father, Richard Chandler. He found out she was in a coma, and Mr. Adkins promised to visit.
"I was thinking I was going to see this girl with shoulder-length blond hair," he said. "Her head was shaved and her eyes were closed. I guess it made me realize how bad it was after thinking she was dead. That she was alive was like a roller coaster in extremes."
All he knew about her was from looking at her in a hospital bed and talking to her family. When they offered him a picture of her, he chose the serious-looking one because he had never seen her smile. He learned that she lived in Clermont County's Union Township and met her boyfriend, Scott Vath, at her job selling office supplies. They had recently gotten engaged. A recent job promotion made her next goal a move to Columbus. She and her fiance were supposed to go look at houses the weekend of her wreck.
She was a 1995 Amelia High School graduate, an evening student at the University of Cincinnati's Clermont branch and a fitness buff. Now her family focused on her slightest movements as she progressed to a lighter stage of a coma.
"I'm overwhelmed at the thought that I want to meet her and talk to her," Mr. Adkins said. "On the other hand, I'm not sure it will ever happen. It's like a tug of war inside."
The Good Samaritan
Any number of people could have stopped that night and taken Mr. Adkins' actions. That's what Ms. Chandler's family told him in a card thanking him.
It's evident in the way they hug him goodbye and talk about him when he's not around that, for them, he represents human compassion and good conscience.
In their nightmare of finding out Ms. Chandler was in a coma, they see him as the one who saved her. They believe she would have died if no one had stopped.
For him, the title of Good Samaritan is a mix of ego and honor. The pressure of being a hero is that he can't just ignore the stranger. He is hooked on the mystery of what will happen to her, and he has become a friend to her family.
He doesn't want to give the impression he's always been a great example of how to live. He says years of being selfish added up to an opportunity to mend his ways.
Adjusting priorities
Anyway, it's too late to change his mind. Now, he's wrapped up in another family's drama.
"It's taking this to another level of personal involvement," he said. "It's giving something -- not for a trade in getting something in return -- but just having something to give."
Chances are poor that Ms. Chandler will fully recover from her severe brain injuries. She may never walk or talk again.
But everyone around her holds out hope that she will prove the doctors wrong. Early on, they had said she was in grave condition. She has since moved to Drake Center, a rehabilitation hospital in Hartwell.
In her room, 116 greeting cards cover the walls, and family and friends gather around a bed where Ms. Chandler tugs at the sheets and kicks her legs in restlessness. She drifts in and out of sleep. For Mr. Adkins, seeing her is both comforting and haunting. He senses that she knows he's there. He's glad she's alive, but he hopes for conscious communication with her.
He's met her fiance, who drives as often as he can from his job at the Air Force base near Dayton, Ohio, just to sit at her bedside and tell her he loves her. Mr. Vath, 28, of Beavercreek, waits for a nod of her head, a squeeze of her hand or the return of a kiss.
Mr. Adkins also met her mother, Donna Chandler, also of Union Township, who sometimes sobs and other times sits in silence. If her daughter has a good day, so does Mrs. Chandler.
A swarm of other relatives spill into the room around the clock. Their support system is what's pulling them through this.
"This adventure has definitely changed the dynamics of the lives of everyone involved and changed the illusion of what we thought priority was," Mr. Adkins said.
It's made him savor small moments, good times and the comfort of friends. He also sees himself as a more spiritual person.
He's dubbed his Easter weekend music tape "The Tara Chandler Session," and Mr. Adkins, a singer-songwriter and guitar player, plans to play the songs in her honor.
The family is planning a June 27 benefit dance at the American Legion Post 72 in Mount Carmel. Mr. Adkins' band, Crystal Axxe -- a mix of rock, blues and folk -- will headline the event and ask other bands to participate.
Mr. Adkins feels compelled to somehow be a part of the life of a stranger because she changed his.
"I'd like to think there's a bigger picture, some of God's doing," he said. "It's definitely raised my awareness and taught me a valuable lesson about life."
PH:Cincinnati Enquirer - Michael Snyder
