Elaine and Don Scholes in their family room, which now does triple duty for Elaine, who was paralyzed after her van was struck by a drunk driver last September.

Mom paralyzed in DUI accident testifies at sentencing
By SUSAN LEATHERS
Brentwood Home Page
In a matter of seconds on the evening of Sept. 13, 2010, Elaine Scholes lost many things: The use of most of her body. Her independence. Her self-esteem. Her love of life.

But now, almost a year after the Brentwood stay-at-home mom’s minivan was hit by an impaired driver traveling at a reported 100 mph, the emotional loss of her youngest daughter is the hardest thing she bears.

Scholes is now a quadriplegic with little use of her arms. A father and son in another car were slightly injured.

On July 7, Garret Bullock, 29, pled guilty in Williamson County Circuit Court to two counts of vehicular assault, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon. He also pleaded guilty to a DUI-second offense charge he picked up just weeks after the September accident.

On Monday, he was sentenced to concurently serve three years in state custody on all of the felony counts (click here for related story). Scholes, who now rarely leaves her Brentwood South home, attended the sentencing hearing with her husband Don and a score of friends, family and former co-workers.

Trip to McDonalds turns tragic
It was early evening when Elaine headed for McDonalds in Maryland Farms to pick up dinner for herself and daughter Mari Leigh. She was stopped at the red light in front of one of Brentwood’s most beautiful vistas – the Turner Farm – where Franklin Road and Murray Lane meet.

Moments later she was being transported to the Vanderbilt Medical Center where she spent two weeks in the hospital’s Trauma Unit, followed by two weeks in its Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Two vertebrae fractured in the accident resulted in a severe spinal cord injury. A steel rod and pins inserted into her spine helped stabilize her spinal cord, but continue to restrict her ability to move her head from side to side or up and down.

During that first month in Vanderbilt, Elaine’s heart stopped beating twice. She now has a pacemaker. She has no movement and practically no feeling from her chest down. She has no use of her hands, and very limited arm movement.

In the 11-page Victim Impact Statement she provided Williamson County Circuit Court Judge Robbie Beal who presided at Monday’s hearing, Scholes stated, “I can do practically nothing for myself.”

She’s not exaggerating.

Stay-at-home mom’s life shattered

A speech and theater major at Murray State University, Elaine loves the theater and performing. She worked at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center until her oldest daughter, Claire, now 22, entered kindergarten. She then put career aside to be a stay-at-home mom.

Claire and Mari Leigh, now a high school senior, inherited their mother’s love of theater.

Claire, a Brentwood High School graduate, graduated in May from Marymount Manhattan College in New York where she studied theater and is pursuing an acting career. Traveling to see their daughter receive her diploma was out of the question for Elaine but Don had hoped to jump through hoops to make it. In the end, Claire “discouraged it,” he said, and he opted to stay in Brentwood.

Not being able to see Claire perform since the accident has been hard, Elaine said Saturday in an interview in the large family-room-turned-bed/sitting/media room where she spends most of her time.

“In fact, before the accident, Don and I had made plans to see her in a play in New York,” Elaine says. Instead, she was in the hospital when the curtain went up.

With much effort, the couple were able to attend Mari Leigh’s performance in Currey Ingram Academy’s Pippin production last spring. It is her relationship with her younger daughter, however, that has left the biggest hole in Elaine’s heart and the most bitterness toward the accident.

“This accident has left our relationship very distant, because Mari Leigh doesn’t know how to deal with it…. She can’t stand the changes that have happened to me,” Elaine says in her slow, steady voice.

Like most teenage girls, Mari Leigh has always liked “her space” but mother and daughter always had a good relationship, Elaine says. They enjoyed doing things like shopping together. At school, “she would depend on me to be her advocate. … She counted on me to weed out those things that she couldn’t handle.”

Mari Leigh has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and a processing disorder. She has attended Currey Ingram since sixth grade to take advantage of its personalized learning programs.

In her Victim Impact Statement, Elaine shares that since returning home three months after the accident, Mari Leigh does not want to be in her presence or visit with her, a fact Elaine calls “particularly devastating.”

“She cannot cope with the change in my body to treat me as a mother anymore. At times, she is embarrassed by the condition I am in and does not want to be seen with me. I miss our relationship, which has only added to my grief over this tragedy.”

In recent months the family has been in counseling – once they found a counselor who would make house calls – but Elaine says the relationship is still strained.

Mental toll weighs heavily

The physical toll the accident has taken on Elaine is compounded by the mental one.

Worry is never far away for Elaine.

“I worry about who is going to take care of me in the future if my husband becomes unable to do so,” she answers to Victim Impact Statement’s question about the mental injuries she has suffered as a result of the accident. “I worry about how we are going to financially afford my care in the future. I feel like a burden on my family and friends often.”

One blessing from the accident has also been a curse of sorts. Elaine suffered no brain injury. “My inability to do much of anything causes me to think about my condition and how much I have lost. I am not sure I will ever be able to grieve my losses,” she states.

“I used to love attention; now I wish I was just invisible because I have such a big footprint,” Elaine says on Saturday. Her large electric wheelchair seems to swallow her small frame. “There’s no more rushing in and out of places anymore, and I love to do that.”

In sickness and in health

On Sept. 21, Don and Elaine will celebrate their 26^th wedding anniversary. She doesn’t remember their milestone silver one last year.

“I was in ICU when we had our 25^th,” she says.

Asked if they had any special plans to mark this year’s date, she confesses, “To be honest, we haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m embarrassed to be seen out. I have to be fed, so going to a restaurant isn’t anything special anymore.”

Watching Bullock’s case travel through the criminal courts is “way out of my bailiwick,” says Don, a mild-mannered attorney who represents water and sewer utilities. Though he is back to work “full-time,” he says the notion of full-time is relative these days.

If there is a health emergency, or someone can’t come to sit with Elaine, “Ultimately, I end up getting the call,” he says. “And a lot of the things that Elaine used to do for Mari Leigh I have to do now.”

Home health caregivers provide care from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays and 7 to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. On weekdays, friends and family members take turns sitting with Elaine until Don gets home from work.

“I just hate that Don has to be so confined in his life, but I’ve come to depend on him a great deal for emotional support and my physical needs,” she says. “He had to learn to be a caregiver.”

Elaine loves to have visitors, and says their Forest Hills Baptist Church family has supported them “in so many ways. They still send meals. They also hold a Bible Study here on Mondays,” she says with obvious appreciation.

“Our friends have come through over and over again,” Elaine says. “I can’t even pick up a glass to give myself a drink. They have been very kind on an ongoing basis.”

Elaine’s mother, now 85, visits every other Wednesday. Her brother as well as Don’s brother and two sisters live in the area and have been rocks to lean on, Don and Elaine share. “They’ve just done things when I needed it done,” he says.

Asked if she thinks Monday’s sentencing would offer any closure, Elaine pauses. “It’s hard to say it will bring closure, because my day-in and day-out struggles continue regardless of where Mr. Bullock spends his time. But he needs to be held responsible for what he has done to me and my family and in that regard, Monday can be called closure of sorts.”

The Scholes know their lives are forever changed, and the future they had planned has been forever altered. Though there is a possibility that Elaine could see minor improvement, both are realistic that “any kind of major change in the future” is not to be expected.

“We’re just trying to maintain what she has,” Don says.

Elaine does hope the accident may help prevent another tragedy like her family has had to experience.

“I want to help in any way I can to get the message out that driving while intoxicated is a recipe for disaster,” she says.

“I’ve told our church and other grownups who are in a situation with a teen drinker that they would be welcome to bring anyone over to see me if it would help get these young people back on track.”