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Student on life support after crash
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET, Times Staff Writer
DADE CITY -- They came to school Wednesday morning through the intersection where it happened. They took their seats in class, unable to ignore the empty desk. The Rev. James Johnson shared what news and comfort he could with his students at East Pasco Adventist Educational Center. But the students couldn't help but worry about their classmate, seventh-grader Charles Bartlett, who remained on life support in a Tampa hospital after a devastating collision Tuesday afternoon. Would their 14-year-old friend live, they wondered. And would he be okay? "He's a very happy kid in general, and most students like him here," said Charles' homeroom teacher, Jeff Foote. Then his voice turned somber, quiet. "We're praying for him," Foote said. Mary Jane Bartlett, 42, was taking her son home about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when the accident happened a couple of blocks from school. Bartlett inched onto U.S. 301 from Centennial Road, trying to turn left across the busy highway to go to Zephyrhills. As she started to cross, a semitrailer truck going north on U.S. 301 plowed into the side of her 1994 navy Ford F150 pickup truck. The impact sent Charles through the rear window of the truck, according to witnesses. He was lying unconscious in the bed of the truck when paramedics arrived. Neither Charles nor his mother was wearing a seat belt, the Florida Highway Patrol determined. The semitrailer truck driver, 30-year-old Carlos Hopkins of Macon, Ga., was not injured. Two helicopters whisked Bartlett and her son to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa. Bartlett remained in fair condition Wednesday, recovering from a serious concussion, according to paramedics. Her son was placed on life support, although hospital officials could not provide information Wednesday about his condition. The accident came a few days before Charles, a member of the school choir, planned to attend a music festival at Forest Lake Academy in Apopka, Foote said. The event will go on without him. The accident also came several months before the installation of a traffic signal that safety advocates say probably would have prevented it. The state Department of Transportation decided last year to place a signal at the problem intersection because of the number of cars trying to turn in and out of Centennial Road, spokeswoman Kris Carson said. A DOT traffic study showed that during an eight-hour period Aug. 14, 2001, 454 vehicles tried to make the same difficult left turn that Mary Jane Bartlett tried Tuesday. At the same time, drivers had to cut between 4,717 cars northbound and 4,877 cars southbound on U.S. 301, the report showed. "Sometimes you might have to wait for a half-hour for the opportunity to arrive to get across the street," said Richard DeLong, principal of the Adventist school. "Between 3 and 4 p.m. every day, that traffic is backed up for 200 to 300 yards (on Centennial Road). It's been a big concern." The state is designing a traffic signal for the intersection, but it was too early to say when it might be installed, Carson said. Once the design is complete, the state has to hire a contractor and get the poles for the signal, she said. "We'll try to get it in as soon as we can," Carson said. In the meantime, the students at East Pasco Adventist Educational Center are trying to help Charles however they can. His classmates made cards Wednesday morning to send to him at the hospital. Some students are considering a project to help pay the family's medical bills, Foote said. And a group of freshmen and sophomores are looking into a way to record personal voice messages for Charles on a continuously playing machine, Foote said. "That way he could hear people's voices, hear good stuff for him to be hearing," Foote said. -- Bridget Hall Grumet can be reached at 352-521-5757 ext. 23 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6108, then 23. Her e-mail address is bhall@sptimes.com
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