Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 12, 1993 TAG: 9310120211
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Melody Caldwell, a Roanoke woman left paralyzed, brain-damaged, yet somehow alive after an automobile accident five years ago, died Monday in a fire at her Chapman Avenue Southwest home.
Her grandfather, who stayed at her bedside every day, suffered serious burns, apparently as he tried to carry her from the burning house - making it as far as the front door before he was overcome by flames and smoke.
Thomas Leffel, who family members called "Doc" because of the long hours he spent caring for Caldwell, was in critical condition Monday night at the University of Virginia Hospital's burn center. Leffel, 66, suffered burns over 25 percent of his body.
Authorities have not determined what started the fire, which broke out shortly before 4 p.m. at 1218 Chapman Ave. S.W., according to District Chief Bobbie Slayton of the Roanoke Fire Department.
Caldwell, 20, had defied medical odds by surviving a 1987 automobile accident in which a metal gear shift was shoved through her brain.
Rev. Charles Green, who was then the chaplain at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, remembers that doctors had little hope for Caldwell, who lost all of the right side of her brain and 30 percent of the left.
But Caldwell hung on, and Green counseled the family through the despair of that awful night to the proud day, in June, when Caldwell graduated from the Roanoke County Occupational School.
Green has since retired as chaplain, but he was called Monday to the scene of the family's latest calamity.
"This is really a tragedy, because they've been through so much already," he said as smoke billowed from the windows of the two-floor frame house.
By the time firefighters arrived, there was little that could be done. Flames were raging from second-story windows, fed by the asphalt-based siding that covered the old house.
Slayton said the fire apparently had been burning for some time before the first call was received at the city's 911 center from a convenience store.
"It got a pretty good jump on us," he said.
Clayton Biller, who passed by on his way home from work, said he saw a man - apparently Leffel - run from the flaming house, his face and back seriously burned.
"He was just screaming: `My baby's in there. My baby's in there,' " Biller said.
Frank Andrews, who had come running from a convenience store, said he tried to kick the front door open, but could not. Authorities later found Caldwell's body just inside the door.
Standing at the perimeter of a crowd that circled the house, Andrews said he was trying to avoid any contact with authorities or television cameras.
"I'm not looking for any glory," he said. "If it was my family, I'd want somebody to do the same thing."
During the hour it took for firefighters to bring the blaze under control, neighbors and onlookers hoped against hope that Caldwell was not inside.
Their hopes fell when rescue workers entered the house and, a short time later, pushed a covered stretcher down a front-porch ramp that had been built years ago for Caldwell's wheelchair.
Authorities said they did not expect foul play in the blaze, which gutted the house.
Cora Layne, who lives several houses down the block, said family members spent most of their time caring for Caldwell.
On warm days they would push her wheelchair out onto the front porch. Caldwell was unable to talk, Layne said, "but she would smile at you all the time."
At the time of the car accident, Caldwell was 15 years old. One of five teen-agers who piled into a car on an October evening, she ended up sitting on the console.
When the car blew a tire and rammed into a utility pole, Caldwell was thrown head-first onto the gear shift, which was missing its rubber knob.
Fearing that the car was going to catch on fire, her friends pulled her from the gear shift and rushed her to Community Hospital.
Although she was never able to walk, talk or feed herself, Caldwell made progress with years of therapy and devotion from family members.
In a newspaper interview in June, family members said they were holding out hope that someday Caldwell might be able to speak a few words or take a few steps.
"She's been through so much," Layne said, "and now this had to happen."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB