A car with three young friends is headed home after a birthday party. Tests say the driver is not drunk.
7 Months Ago
4 Months Ago
8 Months Ago
A Pasco County sheriff’s deputy is speeding through a red light. Evidence suggests his siren is not on.
Twelve years ago, their cars collided violently in the dead of the night. Airlifted to a hospital with a devastating brain injury, Jennifer Wohlgemuth did not lose her life in that fateful moment.
Just her future. And her past.
• • •
Everything you have just read comes from a law enforcement investigation and a subsequent court ruling. It’s only the first-person account of this story that you cannot trust.
You see, all these years later, Jen is a bright-eyed and beautiful young woman. There is no outward indication that a large chunk of her skull was once removed and frozen for eight months because of the swelling and damage around her brain.
Her laugh is both genuine and addictive. And she seems happy and eager to answer any questions about her injury, her rehabilitation and her long-ago accident.
The problem is her story has missing pieces and misplaced details. Because of the severity of her brain injury, Jen cannot remember much from 12 years ago.
Or 12 days ago. Or even 12 minutes ago.
• • •
She keeps a journal of her daily routine. She writes down when she last ate, took a shower, or had a conversation with a relative or friend.
She doesn’t read or watch much TV, because it’s hard to remember characters or story lines a few scenes later. She is outgoing and inquisitive, and prone to blurt out every thought in her head. Now 33, she retains some of the intellect of her 21-year-old self but mostly the judgment of a 10-year-old.
When you ask her mother Traci if there is a medical term for this problem of short-term memory loss, Jen interjects with a straight-faced answer:
"CRS,” she announces.
And then she explains about the sweatshirt that an aunt had made for her:
"Can’t Remember S***”
She is not overly burdened by worries or regrets. Jen lives minute-to-minute because that’s all her memory allows.
And so the future is left for Traci alone to fear.
• • •
The car chase began with a speeding ticket.
A driver had been pulled over sometime after 1 a.m. in New Port Richey, and then nearly ran over a police officer when he fled. Police cars were already in pursuit when a Pasco deputy joined the chase.
He was well behind the others, and had not gotten permission to engage in a chase, when he ran a red light and slammed into Jen’s Honda Accord.
The deputy said his siren was on, but a witness later said it was not. A recording of a dispatch call moments before the collision did not capture the sound of a siren, and the switch was found in the off position after the crash..
Circuit Judge Stanley Mills eventually found the Pasco Sheriff’s Office liable, and awarded the Wohlgemuth family $9.14 million in damages, later reduced to $8.7 million. Pasco appealed the verdict, and lost.
A state law, however, limited judgments against police departments to $100,000, which was paid by insurance. To collect the other $8.6 million, the Wohlgemuths had to file a claims bill that requires approval from the Legislature.
They did that in 2011. And ’12. And every year since.
They still haven’t received a penny.
• • •
Traci spent three months at the Ronald McDonald House in St. Petersburg, and another five months commuting while Jen remained in a rehabilitation unit with the gaping hole in her skull.
Even after the end of rehab, Jen still needed constant supervision, and so Traci began taking her to the doctor’s office where she worked in Palm Harbor. Jen would get a room to herself where she would make jewelry all day while patients came and went.
This went on for nearly a decade until Traci, 53, began having unusual health symptoms. In 2015, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
The question of Jen’s future care is now more pressing than ever. When the Sheriff’s Office agreed to revisit the remaining judgment in mediation last year, Traci said she felt backed into a corner. She feared the Legislature would never approve any amount without the Sheriff’s Office cooperation, and so she had to hope a mediator would come to an equitable solution.
The result?
Payments of $325,000 per year for the next eight years. With attorney fees factored in, the Wohlgemuths would get a total of $1.95 million. And only if the Legislature approves it this spring.
Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco, who was not sheriff at the time of the crash, declined an interview. He issued this statement:
"Pursuant to the settlement agreement reached by the parties, we have agreed to not support or oppose the (Legislative) bill.”
The irony, Traci says, is Jen would have been better off if she were hit by anyone other than a law enforcement officer. Individuals or insurance companies could be sued, but not the Sheriff’s Office.
"She needs 24-hour supervision for the rest of her life. Whether it’s $2 million or $25 million, no amount of money can replace the fact that she had her life taken from her,” Traci said. "It was their fault. We thought eventually they would accept that, but they just wore us down.”
• • •
There are a couple of exceptions to Jen’s TV ban.
One is the movie 50 First Dates.
Drew Barrymore plays a young woman who suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident and forgets everything that’s happened to her when she goes to bed at night.
"We’ve watched it 100 times,” Traci says with a grin.
"Not 100,” Jen protests. "We’ve seen it a few times.”
The movie ends with Barrymore falling in love and starting a family with Adam Sandler. And each morning when she wakes up, he re-introduces her to the life she has forgotten.
But that’s Hollywood, and has little in common with reality.
"She wants to get married and have kids,” Traci says, "and it hurts me to have to tell her that it’s never going to happen.”
Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
