Missing Danielle

The Tragedy

So, let me take you back to the terrible night of the crash.

It was June 26, 1999 at 11:30 PM when my Mom called me and said Danielle and my Aunt had been in a wreck and we needed to go to Louisville right away. I hung up the phone, ran upstairs and packed an overnight bag. I then when and sat on the front porch waiting on my parents. I had my roommate to go back in and hit *69 on the phone just to make sure I was not imaging it. (My sister was in Lville staying with my Aunt).

When my parents pulled up I got into the car and we headed towards Lville. My Mom was crying and my Dad was silent. I kept telling my Mom that car wrecks happen everyday. I was expecting broken bones and ribs. Then my Uncle called and said the doctors need our permission to take her into surgery. We gave our consent. It was then I began to panic, yet I still held out hope she was okay.

No one would tell us anything except she was in surgery and it was very bad. My aunt was still in ER so my mother and I went to see her. She was tossing and turning in the hospital bed. She couldn’t figure out why Mom and I were there. She had no idea why she was there. She didn’t know she gave the hospital my parents phone number. She did not know my Sister was with her.

My sister was in surgery for 6 hours. They repaired most of her internal organs and even had to remove some. Her bladder had burst from the impact and they were trying to mend it. When we were finally able to see her in ICU I remember walking in and seeing her so peaceful.
I went up to her and said her name, but there was no answer. Then I had to sit down as I was getting weak. The nurse kept asking me if I was all right. I wasn’t. I ran to the restroom and vomited over and over. That was not my sister! She was so still, so swollen. There were so many tubes and monitors. She was on a ventilator - a machine was keeping her alive. I learned every machine in her room. I knew what every machine did. I kept expecting her to look at me, she never did.

The doctors told us it would be days before we would know the extent of the brain damage because there was so much swelling. It would take days for the swelling to go down. All we could do was wait and pray. So we waited and waited and prayed and prayed. We never left the hospital. My mom & I took baths in the bathroom sinks & laid on a single cot together in her room. If she woke up, we wanted to be there. We brought in prayer groups from all of our churches to pray over her. A spiritual healer from the Middle East came in and performed a ceremony which was suppose to bring someone out of a coma. Nothing changed, she never moved.

I remember seeing her arms twitch and twist inward. I ran out and grabbed a nurse and told her to come in, she was responding to my voice! The nurse told me that was not a good response, that is her body just retracting. I remember them pinching her fingers and her toes to try and make her pull them back – again there was nothing. Her fingernails and toenails were bruised. However, her face was beautiful. There was only a small scratch on her cheek and some stitches in her hairline.

A few days had gone by and there was no change. Her heart was strong and her body would heal; yet her brain had suffered too much trauma. However, I was not going to give up on her. People are granted miracles everyday and I wanted one! She had done everything right, never got into trouble, was the head of her Dental hygiene class at WKU, completed college and had a wonderful job in Brentwood, TN. She deserved a miracle.

I washed her hair one day to get the blood out of it. I put make-up on her because she hated to be seen without her face on. I talked to her constantly. I begged her to come back to me. I begged her to go with God if she was in too much pain – I promised her I would take care of Mom and Dad.

On the fourth day I found out the man who hit my sister and aunt was drunk and on 3 different pain killers & muscle relaxers at the time of the crash. He only received a busted lip. I also learned it was his 3rd offense. I was too exhausted to be angry, I just wanted my Sister back.

The 6th day Danielle laid in a coma was July 2nd. It was her 25th birthday. Some of her friends sent birthday cards and I read them to her.

The doctors came to us on the 7th day and said they needed to insert a chest tube. It was 4:00 AM. I told the doctor to call the man who put Danielle here, wake him & his family up and ask him how he felt about inserting a chest tube.

The 8th day of the Danielle in a coma was July 4th. We could see the river and all the fireworks going on in downtown Lville. I remember looking out the window and wondering how was the world going on when I had lost so much. How could anyone laugh when my world had stopped?

On the 9th day they had to insert a brain catheter to drain off the fluid from her brain. The tests were all showing she had no brain activity. However, her heart was so strong, it would not let her go. They said her body would heal itself in a few weeks, but she would never open her eyes, sit up, or even know that we were there. She would be hooked up to feeding tubes for the rest of her life and have to live in a home with constant medical attention – something we couldn’t do on our own. The doctors took her in for test after test trying to see if there was any brain activity at all. All tests came back negative. She was in a vegetative state.

After tests being run for the millionth time, and different doctors all giving the same opinion, they finally convinced us that there was no hope of us ever getting my sister back, at least not in the state that she would have wanted to live. Her head hit the hood of his car during the crash and crushed her brain stem.

On the tenth day, we had to make the decision to turn the machines off. It was the hardest day of my life. They said she could last a minute, a day, a month, or years. Her heart was so strong - she lived for seven more days. They only had the minimal amount of oxygen going to her trac. It was called a comfort measure.

Once we removed her from the life support, we had to move to a step down room. The care was not one on one and we expected that. So I stepped in and took over.

I gave her baths, went to the desk to get them to give her tylenol because her temperature fluctuated from 98 degrees to 104 degrees due to the head injury. I called the nurses to help me turn her every few hours. I massaged her ankles, put lotion on her and suctioned out her mouth & nose.
My Aunt through all this was a floor below us. She had no idea Danielle was in the hospital. She could not remember Danielle even being in town. My Aunt has suffered memory loss and brain damage. However, through therapy she has regained almost every aspect of her life. However, she is different. She experienced frontal damage to her brain, it effects her personality among other things.

Prior to my Aunt getting out of the hospital, I went to my aunts’ house to retrieve Danielle’s things and found her nightgown on the floor where she had changed prior to leaving that night. I found her toothbrush with toothpaste on it at the sink – waiting for her to return. Her bath water was still in the tub where the wash cloth had caught it after she had gotten out. I just laid on the bed, cringing her nightgown and cried even though it felt as if I couldn’t cry anymore.
Danielle and my aunt had run out at 11:30 PM to get a late night hamburger, something Danielle and I have done numerous times and Ryan Lackey had been drinking, chose to drive and ran a stoplight.

The day Danielle died, July 14th, 12 days after her 25th birthday, I was laying in her bed listening to her breath and I knew it wouldn’t be long. I was sitting beside her bed and mom was in the chair with me. The Chaplain was holding her hand, when her breathing became different. I was watching Danielle. I looked at the Chaplain and mouthed “is she still breathing?” He looked at her and looked and me and said aloud, “I think she has quit breathing”. Danielle had finally opened her eyes as I watched her take her last breath. I then reached over, closed her eyes and then went to get the nurse. It was the first time her eyes had opened in 17 days and I was the one who closed them. It was 1:53 p.m. on July 14th.

My mom called my dad and told him, he was thirty minutes away. They came and took Danielle and we just sat in the empty hospital room and waited for him. I packed up all our clothes and gifts others had sent and then we headed back to Bowling Green. I didn’t want to leave the hospital, the hospital was my home for 17 days. I wanted Danielle back, I didn’t care if she was hooked up to a million machines, at least I could see her, touch her.

It took over a year before we finally got to trial. As you saw the clips it was very emotional. The trial lasted for 2 weeks. The druck driver was convicted then changed his plea to guilty before sentencing, scared he may receive 20 years, he agreed to 12 years, no shock probation and gave up the right to appeal the verdict.

Missing Danielle

Danielle's Life

The Tragedy

What is lost....

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