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Article Excerpt
A child's untimely death
ROY A. DUDDY
On Saturday, September 23, 2000, at 4 p.m., 32- year-old Brett Ennis was riding his motorcycle home on Route 102 in Londonderry, New Hampshire. He and a friend had spent the day cleaning and polishing their motorcycles for a fund-raising bike ride. His longtime fiancee, Catrina Graves, was driving her car immediately behind him. They had just eaten lunch and were planning to rent a movie to watch that evening.
The two-lane Route 102 handles a large volume of traffic at a speed limit of 50 mph. As Brett approached the intersection with Parmenter Road, Franklin Estabrook of Wilmington, Massachusetts, pulled his car into the intersection in front of him. Brett swerved to his left but was unable to avoid the car. The collision threw Brett off his bike: He struck the car's hood, cartwheeled through the air, and landed on his back in the middle of the road.
Catrina screamed as she watched the accident. She saw Brett fly through the air and saw his feet, then his head, hit the payvement. She swerved sharply to the right to avoid the car, then immediately stopped. She ran to Brett's side, where she saw blood coming from his mouth. She tried to clear his mouth and loosen his jacket and sweat-shirt. His eyes were open, but he wasn't moving. She held his hand and tried to comfort him, crying all the while, until emergency personnel arrived.
Catrina followed the ambulance to Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, where she stayed at Brett's side for almost 30 hours until he was removed from life support. He had been kept on life support so his organs could be donated and so his son from a former marriage could arrive from Arkansas to say good-bye.
Catrina and the Ennis family, who were and remain very close, sought counseling almost immediately after the accident to try to deal with the tragedy. Catrina still sees a psychologist.
About a month after the accident, Catrina and Brett's father came to see me. During our meeting, I saw clearly that Catrina and Brett--along with his family--had a genuine love for one another that had developed over seven years. Catrina saw the Ennis family weekly, and Brett's parents treated her...
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