Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 12, 1995 TAG: 9504120028
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Members of Friends of the Roanoke River and Float Fishermen of Virginia's Roanoke Chapter spent a recent weekend making sure Roanoke County resident Katie Lynn Charlton, who nearly drowned when her canoe got caught in the sycamore's branches, was that tree's last victim.
After hours of hacking and sawing, the five workers were able to remove the fallen tree from the river.
Without the groups' help, that tree "would've been there for a long, long time," potentially leading to another accident like Charlton's, said Bill Tanger, chairman of Friends of the Roanoke River.
Others have gotten snared in the branches, causing their boats to capsize, Tanger said. But, unlike Charlton, the tree branches didn't pin them underwater.
"This girl was very unfortunate," Tanger said.
Shifts in the river's channel over 10 years uprooted the sycamore, leaving it in the river - its roots pointing upstream and its crown downstream.
"It was in a curve in the river, and all of the current heads straight toward it," Tanger said. "If it'd been anywhere else in the river, it might not have done anything."
But on Aug. 20, it did.
Charlton, a novice, was canoeing with her boyfriend when the canoe rammed the tree. It flipped, throwing her boyfriend. The canoe got tangled in the tree's limbs. Charlton was pinned underwater for 10 minutes.
A couple of passers-by, a Salem police officer, and Charlton's boyfriend eventually pried the metal boat off the 1990 Northside High School graduate. Roanoke County and Salem rescue squad crews restored her breathing at the scene.
But the 22-year-old has never regained consciousness. She no longer is in a coma, but she is not aware, either, said her older sister, Marilyn Shelor.
Charlton, who was a clerk at First Union National Bank and was taking accounting classes at Virginia Western Community College, has left Lewis-Gale Hospital. Now she is in a rehabilitative hospital in Richmond. And her insurance company - which had stopped doling out funds, saying Charlton could receive the care she needed in a nursing home - is picking up the tab again.
Charlton regularly works with speech and physical therapists, is able to say ``hi'' and follow things with her eyes.
"We're taking it day to day. As a family, we'd like to see an Easter miracle" that returns both Katie and her parents to their home, Shelor said.
The parents are living out of suitcases in a Williamsburg motel so they can spend every day at Katie's bedside. They left for Richmond with Katie in January, and they haven't been back since.
"My father said he wasn't coming back till Katie does," Shelor said.
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.