‘He seemed to beam with potential'
‘He seemed to beam with potential'
Just like that, a car accident snuffed Tom Winter's bright future
Tuesday September 19, 2000
By Greg Stone
STAFF WRITER
To the preoccupied, the lamppost flowers might appear to be part of some downtown beautification effort.
Except no other poles along Quarrier Street are so decorated.
This pole is special, sacred and sad, all rolled into one, for the parents and friends of Tom Winter.
It all happened so fast Saturday night.
Winter, Erin Webb and Drew Persinger had been in a Quarrier Street photography studio, looking at portraits of Webb, before setting off for a Capital High football game later that night.
As they prepared to cross Dickinson Street, a violent scene unfolded before them: A Subaru smacked into the side of a Jeep.
Freakily, the Jeep, driven by 16-year-old Christopher Thaxton, spun 180 degrees, in a tight semicircle.
Leaking fluids, with a blown tire, the spinning Jeep nearly hit both Webb and Persinger. They were walking ahead of Winter, closer to the intersection, and had just enough room to jump to the left.
"I could feel little pieces of glass hit me as it went by," said Webb, 17.
Winter had little space to maneuver, hemmed in by the Davidson Building. The Jeep slammed into him as it hopped up on the brick sidewalk.
The driver of the Subaru, Brittain McJunkin, a Charleston physician, hopped out of his car. He and a Blossom Dairy waitress began administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Staff and patrons of the restaurant poured outside.
As McJunkin worked, blood from the young man's internal injuries dripped from the doctor's mouth and face.
"Most of the waitresses were really upset about it that night," said Orville Kincaid, a dishwasher at the Blossom. "A couple of them had to go home.
"That's something you don't see every day. God, I'm glad you don't. I feel for the people involved."
Nearby, Thaxton stood crying. He and some friends were headed west on Quarrier. Charleston police say the youth ran a red light and McJunkin, headed north on Dickinson, couldn't avoid hitting him.
Winter still had a pulse when ambulances arrived. He died later at General Division, CAMC.
"It's a tragedy," said Cpl. James Coiner of the Charleston Police Department's accident investigation bureau. "One family has lost a son and nothing will bring him back. The other kid will have to live with the knowledge of what he did resulted in somebody dying. "
Coiner said Kanawha County prosecutors are debating whether to charge Thaxton with anything other than running a red light. He could be charged with vehicular manslaughter.
Winter's friends were still paying respects Monday. Margaret McNeill, 17, and Leah Kuhlman, 17, both Capital High seniors, left a flower vase. Other friends had already adorned the light pole with bouquets, candles and messages.
Grim tire tracks and police markings run from the base of the pole toward the intersection.
"He was always there for everybody," McNeill said. "He'd give anything to make you laugh. Then he'd try to be serious."
Webb and friend Brent Stephens, 19, played in the West Virginia Youth Symphony with Winter, who also starred in several Capital High dramas and played and refereed soccer.
Winter, Webb and Stephens toured Europe together this summer with the symphony. Winter played the French horn.
"He seemed to beam with potential," said Stephens. "I always envisioned Tom in a business suit with a briefcase. He had a professional, upper-class aura about him."
By all accounts, Winter looked ready to take on the world. He had just enrolled at Marshall University. Stephens' forecast might have been on the money - Winter planned to study business.
Erin Webb's mother, Rebecca, says Winter was "confident, handsome, kind, extroverted, energetic and talented. "
Stephens said he is angry that the accident happened the way it did. "It's very appalling and upsetting to me. "
But people shouldn't automatically use Thaxton's age as an explanation for the accident, Coiner said. In all his years of traffic work, he has found that drivers 30 and older run the majority of red lights.
"I see a lot more older, experienced people doing it that don't give a hoot, just don't care," he said. "They say, ‘This light isn't going to hold me up.'"
As evidence, one can point to Charleston Police Chief Jerry Riffe, who admitting to running a red light and causing an accident earlier this year.
Plenty of people run red lights daily, though most get away with it, said Charleston police Lt. K.D. Perdue.
"But when it does lead to an accident, it's often a serious one," Perdue said.
About noon Monday at the same intersection, a Ford Windstar zipped under a just-turned red light. A few minutes later, another vehicle turned left on red, from Quarrier to Dickinson.
The Quarrier-Dickinson intersection isn't particularly dangerous, Coiner said. Department statistics show that a series of intersections along Pennsylvania Avenue are far more treacherous.
And as far as vehicle-pedestrian accidents go, one is far more likely to get hit along MacCorkle Avenue in Kanawha City.
That knowledge is of little consolation to Erin Webb, who is haunted by Saturday night's images.
"I miss him so much," said Webb. "We don't know what we're going to do without him. He was the one I'd go to in a time like this."