Eclectic’s miracle girls recovering from wreck
Published: April 22, 2006
Tramone Kendrick, knowing the camera was clicking, tried not to break a sweat or make an ugly face while she completed an exercise during rehabilitation.
Less than a month ago, Kendrick, known to her family and friends as “Shekka,” couldn’t walk following an automobile accident that crushed the lower half of her body.
Now she’s trying to get her life and her body back together again.
“I can’t wait to wear my heels again!” she says. “I can walk around here, but I can’t walk around the mall or anything like that.”
On Jan. 30, Kendrick, 19, was on the way to the store with her cousins Okeisha, 16, and Tiffany, 14, when she slammed her brand new-car into a tree. The wreck crushed the lower half of her body, and she had to be airlifted to a hospital in Mobile. Her cousin Tiffany was transported to the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, where she had brain surgery. Tiffany’s sister Okeisha broke her hip and her lungs collapsed.
Rita Kendrick, Tramone’s mother, and Carrie Kendrick, their grandmother, are raising the three girls. They all are on the road to recovery, but it has been difficult.
To help cover medical costs, a benefit is being held at Elmore County High School today at 5 p.m. Different churches and groups will sing to raise money for the family.
“Here in Eclectic they all call them the three miracle girls of Eclectic,” Rita Kendrick said. “They had never seen anything like that. They never thought they would get up and walk away from something like this.”
At Tallassee Rehab, certified personal trainer and physical therapist assistant Louie Bell III is helping Tramone Kendrick recover.
“My goal is basically to get her as functional as possible,” Bell said.
Smiling, Kendrick finished up the toe press exercises Bell gave her to stretch and strengthen her calf muscles.
“Baby steps,” she said. “I’m like a kid. I have to learn how to walk. I’m starting my whole life over again.”
Kendrick says the accident and her recovery have been a religious experience for her.
“I’m going to try to get saved and go back to school since I got a second chance,” she said. “I feel he (God) gave me a second chance at life. I feel like I owe my life to him.”
Kendrick and her “sisters” Okeisha and Tiffany look forward to returning to normal lives and daily routines befitting young girls.
“I want to go back to school, probably AUM,” Kendrick said. “I want to do real estate.”
Kendrick had just started driving when she had the accident. Her mother was working two jobs and taking her daughter to class at night in Montgomery. Tramone Kendrick started learning how to drive to ease her mother’s burden.
The road to recovery is an expensive one — especially since Kendrick is not insured. She was under her father’s insurance but lost it after his employer, Mount Vernon Mills in Tallassee, closed. Rita Kendrick took out insurance on the car, but Tramone, an unlicensed driver, was not covered. She had gone to get her driver’s license twice — including once on the day of the accident — but was forced to leave both times.
The medical bills continue to pile up. The costs include bills for the emergency room, three ambulance services, rehabilitation sessions at $90 a week and regular doctor’s appointments.
Since January, Elmore County experienced a rash of fatal car accidents involving teenagers and teenage drivers. Three teens died and four suffered serious injuries in car accidents.
In 2004, four teens died in car accidents in Elmore County, down from five a year earlier. In the state, 154 teens died in car accidents in 2004.
Bryan Valliere, 18, died in a car accident in January, eight days before Kendrick had her accident. He was a passenger in a vehicle that struck a pole on U.S. 231 in Wetumpka.
His mother, Frankie, said she has no regrets about letting her son get behind the wheel or ride with friends.
“You have to cut your kids loose at some time,” she said. “We have no regrets because we know where he is. He showed us every day he loved us. He was never shy or ashamed to hug and kiss his father in public. All I have to say is live your life with no regrets.”
The accidents did not involve alcohol and most did not involve speeding.
“These kids (in the accidents) were not wild kids,” Valliere said. “(Bryan) was a good Christian, an Eagle Scout, an honor student, an All-Metro kicker for football, and he had 360 hours of community service under his belt. He had all the training and preparation for everything in the world. You just prepare them and hope it’s not their time.”
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: