Katie and Scottie's story

1993 - We had a beautiful family and home and had a wonderful life.  That all changed on April 9, 1993 when my 4 year old daughter Katherine and her 3 year old brother Scott died in a tragic accident at our home.

We had built a new house in the summer of 1990.  That day in April, we had a contractor, a friend of ours coming to our home to build a stone retaining wall in the back yard.  My husband was in the excavation business and we had many pieces of large equipment.  My older children had driven with their stepdad may times on the equipment and the younger kids, Katie & Scott had grown up around and played on the equipment many times.

The keys had been left in the backhoe for our friend to use....I had left for work and my oldest daughter was watching the kids as it was Good Friday and there was no school.  I worked at our local hospital and was the manager of our Outpatient Registration/Emergency Room Department.  I was only working for a few hours that day.

The little ones were crying to play on the backhoe, their father would put them in the bucket & lift it up and down like a ride...... they were playing on the loader when the bucket, which was raised, suddenly dropped, spilling Katie and Scottie to the ground then landing on them.  In an instant they were gone.

They died at 12:45 p.m. on Good Friday.  I pray the Lord Jesus took them at this time for a reason.....I will never know what that reason is until the day I die.

Mindy's Story

3 years had passed since Katie and Scottie died.  They were dark days as we struggled to put our lived back together without them.  Grief ruled our days....my marriage fell apart....Jennifer Mindy and I had to start our lives over again. 

Things were starting to look up.  Jennifer had re-enrolled in school and was doing well and Mindy was attending The Winchendon School, a college prep school where her aunt worked.  She was doing well also.  I had a wonderful new job at Central Mass Oral Surgery and a wonderful man in my life who was doing his best to take care of us.

Mindy's 16th birthday was on November 26th.  We had gathered at my parents home for a small family birthday party.  Mindy wanted to take a walk to the store 1/2 mile down the road before we started.  45 minutes passed....no Mindy.  I was leaving my parents house and came upon an accident scene right in front of their home.  I asked the EMTs if they had seen a girl walking up the road.  They started asking me what she was wearing and if she had any identifying marks.  My heart dropped, why are they asking me this? where is my daughter?  That is when they told me on the way to this accident scene they found a girl in the road down the street.  The woman who caused the car accident was fleeing the scene after she hit my daughter and sideswiped two cars in front of my parents home.  I did not know the woman who hit my daughter was in the ambulance I was standing next to.

Having worked at Heywood Hospital I ran inside and called the Emergency Room where a E.R. nurse that I knew told me Mindy was there and to hurry.  A police officer from Westminster took my parents and I to the hospital.  Meanwhile, Jenn was still at school and awaiting a ride from me and did not know her sister was hurt.

We prayed all the way to the hospital and in the room where they put families whose family members were gravely injured.  I knew this room, it was the same room they had put us in when Katie and Scott had died.  A living nightmare....I begged them to let me see my daughter, I wanted to be with her if she was going to pass, but it was too late.  Mindy died on her 16th birthday.  I had to return to my parents and tell Jennifer that her sister was gone.  Devastating.....

The woman who struck my daughter was drunk.  She had gotten into an argument with her girlfriend and left their house not a quarter mile from where Mindy was struck.  After months of court appearances, she finally pled guilty to vehicular homicide and was sentenced to three years in jail.