The vehicle carrying three honors students crashes into a tree. One survives. The driver had her license only a few months.
By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published May 3, 2004
[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.]
Naomi Tidwell
Tiffany Tripp
Christy Stover, the sole survivor, comforts Kyle Tidwell at the spot where his daughter, Naomi, landed after the crash. About 125 came to the site to mourn the Chamberlain High teens.
[Times photos: Joseph Garnett Jr.]
David and Toni Walker, stepfather and mother of Tiffany Tripp, pause by the oak tree where the SUV crashed. 10 News:
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TAMPA - Kyle Tidwell wanted to see the exact spot where his daughter fell.
Tidwell found it Sunday afternoon, marked with a neon green circle of paint. He knelt down, buried his head in the grass and cried.
Around him, scores of people silently shared his grief for the deaths Saturday of his 16-year-old daughter, Naomi Tidwell, and fellow Chamberlain High School sophomore Tiffany Tripp, 16.
Both girls died after the SUV they were in went out of control on Lake Magdalene Boulevard and crashed into a tree.
Christy Stover, 16, the sole survivor of the single-car accident that killed her two closest friends and fellow honors students, made her way over on crutches and stood next to Tidwell.
She tried to console him, but started crying. She too needed someone to comfort her.
There were many shoulders to cry on. By Sunday evening, more than 125 Chamberlain High School students and parents had come to the accident site to mourn.
Classmates brought pink balloons, gold sunflowers and stuffed animals to the impromptu memorial service, placing their gifts around a scarred oak tree, still sprinkled with pieces of glass from Naomi's windshield.
Hillsborough sheriff's spokesman Lt. Rod Reder said that about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Naomi tried passing another vehicle "at a high rate of speed" when her two-door, 2001 Ford Explorer went out of control.
Naomi, who turned 16 in February, had her driver's license for just a few months, according to her father.
Christy, who had been riding in the back seat, said Sunday she didn't remember another vehicle in the area at the time of the accident.
"All I remember is (Naomi) swerved, and I fell to the floor," Christy said. "The next thing I remember is waking up and crawling out of the back."
Reder said, "What we have is preliminary information. True details come out later."
Trapped inside the SUV, Tiffany was cut out by rescuers, Reder said, before paramedics took the three girls to a hospital.
Doctors at St. Joseph's Hospital pronounced Naomi and Tiffany dead within an hour of the accident. Doctors at University Community Hospital treated Christy and released her.
Ryan Montgomery lives with Amanda Lovell and their two young daughters at 14107 Lake Magdalene Blvd., where the SUV came to rest.
The couple were walking through their front door Saturday when they heard tires squealing.
Montgomery said he saw the SUV rip through the hedges, flip several times and hit the oak in yard, windshield first.
"It scared me to death," Lovell said.
Lovell called 911, while Montgomery rushed to the vehicle. Christy was crawling out.
A passerby, identified by Montgomery as a nurse, went to Naomi's aide as she lay on the ground after being thrown about 30 feet from the vehicle. Montgomery and Lovell stood at the passenger's side of the SUV and tried to tell Tiffany everything would be okay.
"They say children are our future," said Montgomery. "It's not every day see your future die in front of you."
After crying over the spot where Naomi lay Saturday night fighting for her life, Kyle Tidwell, 41, a senior business analyst, asked the growing crowd on Sunday to join hands in a circle of prayer.
But first, he delivered an impromptu, emotional 15-minute eulogy.
"(Naomi) lived to go to school and be with you all," Tidwell said. "I could never get her to get on the bus and come home."
Tidwell said he'd never known three better soul mates than Naomi, Tiffany and Christy. While Tiffany and Christy have been best friends since the second grade, Naomi completed the group of the "Three Stooges" when they met in ninth grade, Tidwell said.
All three attended honors classes at Chamberlain. Naomi and Christy were enrolled in Chamberlain's advanced placement program.
About a week ago, Tidwell said, he and Naomi talked about her first two years of high school and her plans for the next two. He said he worried that she wasn't focusing enough on schoolwork, that she was spending too much time with friends.
"Dad, these people don't have anybody but me," Naomi said.
"How can you handle so many problems of people your own age?" Tidwell asked his daughter.
"I don't know how, Dad," she said. "But somehow when we get through talking, it just all seems better."
Tidwell encouraged the Chamberlain students to talk on Sunday. He told them to share their stories about Naomi, whom they all called "Nomi," and Tiffany, whose nickname was "Nubs."
Tiffany was a fiery redhead, liked so much by everyone at Chamberlain, she was running unopposed for president of her junior class. Elections were to take place in the next few weeks.
Tiffany had spent most of her Saturday morning volunteering, said her mother, Toni Walker. She was active in Young Life, a Christian youth group.
On Saturday she worked to clean up the yard of an elderly couple in Carrollwood. It was the last of four projects she had to complete to earn a scholarship for a camping trip to Colorado this summer with the group, Walker said.
Tiffany loved old movies and wanted to become an actor. She planned to attend the University of Central Florida after graduating from high school and work at Disney World.
The girls were on their way to watch the movie Mean Girls when the accident happened, Christy said. Tiffany and Naomi had studied all afternoon at Naomi's house, working on an English literature homework assignment due today. They decided to take a break and pick up Christy from work and catch a film.
Walker said the girls were at her home 10 minutes before the crash.
"She was a pleasure to have spent 16 years with," Walker said of Tiffany. "She was a gift from God. Everybody needs to know their children are."
