Mark Varidin's family hoped for the best, but are told the Pinellas doctor died in a Missouri plane crash.
By JAMIE THOMPSON
Published October 22, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - None of them slept all night.
They cried and paced and contemplated hopeful possibilities. Maybe he had taken a different plane. Maybe he had miraculously survived.
But the anguishing, 20-hour wait ended Wednesday with the news they had feared: Dr. Mark Varidin had died in a fiery crash near Kirksville, Mo., while traveling on a Corporate Airlines plane en route from St. Louis.
Varidin, a husband and father who ran an osteopathic medical practice in St. Petersburg for nearly 19 years, was 46.
"He was a tremendous family man and an excellent doctor," said Varidin's longtime friend, Dr. Tom Mathias of Pinellas Park. "His patients absolutely adored him."
Authorities found eight bodies after Tuesday's crash, but five people remained missing - giving Varidin's family hope that he had survived.Two people had walked away with little more than broken bones.
"There was just a crashing sound," one survivor, Dr. John Krogh, 68, said on ABC's "Good Morning America. "I'm sure that was the wing hitting a tree. I just didn't believe that it was happening. As we bounced along through the trees, people started screaming badly. Terrible screams."
Krogh was found in the brush about 25 feet from the fuselage, and his 44-year-old assistant was walking around when rescue workers arrived.
The crew's last communication indicated the plane was on a normal approach to the airport and did not mention any problems, said Elizabeth Isham Cory, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman.
Many of the passengers, including Varidin, were on their way to a conference on humanism in medicine, said Philip Slocum, dean and vice president for medical affairs at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Friends recalled Varidin as a dedicated doctor who worked 12- to 14-hour days, but usually took at least one day off to spend time with his wife, attorney Diane Varidin, and 5-year-old son, Alexander, who is the "spitting image" of his father.
Varidin loved taking his son to Devil Rays games and also regularly played golf with a group of his father's friends, including the doctor who delivered him.
"Mark always beat us," said his father, Dr. Plato Varidin, "but he was a gracious winner."
Mark Varidin was named physician of the year in 2000 by the Pinellas County Osteopathic Medical Society, and picked up a variety of other accolades during his career.
One thing that most pained him, friends said, was being among a group of professionals who pleaded guilty in 2000 to federal charges of accepting kickbacks for directing Medicare patients to a Clearwater lab.
"His basic attitude was, he was going through tough times, but he was going to get through them. And he did, handling them with class and dignity," said Kenneth Webster, executive director of the Pinellas County Osteopathic Medical Society.
Varidin's friends have set up a trust fund for his son at the Bank of America on 5100 Park Blvd. in Pinellas Park.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
