His sister passed the accident location on her way home, but had no idea it was her brother.
By DUANE BOURNE
Published October 28, 2004
SPRING HILL - Harry Jackson Bates took the same route every day.
From the mobile home he shared with his sister's family on Centerwood Avenue in Spring Hill, the 18-year-old would cross U.S. 19 and head toward the Spring Hill Lanes. After a cup of water and a short stay, Bates would head for home. The walk usually took 5 minutes.
Monday wasn't supposed to be any different.
"He talked to his girlfriend and told her he was going to take his walk," said Bates' sister, 24-year-old Sherri Sheldon. "He never made it back."
A motorist struck and killed Bates, a published poet, as he crossed U.S 19 Monday night.
The Florida Highway Patrol said Bates, who was wearing dark clothing, was walking west across the six-lane highway at 8:37 p.m. Monday when he was hit by a Mercury driven by Barbara Crisanti, 63.
Crisanti was traveling south in the center lane when the accident occurred, the FHP report said. Because of construction along the median, a sign near the crash scene directs motorists to merge right because the left lane is closed.
"He was in the middle lane and probably thought he was in the clear," said Sheldon Wednesday, forcing back tears.
The impact threw Bates' 6-foot-1-inch-frame onto the sedan's windshield "He did not have time to react," Sheldon said before she and her family headed to Georgia to make funeral arrangements. "It was not his fault and it was not her fault."
Crisanti has not been charged in the accident.
Sheldon was returning from work around 9:30 p.m. Monday when she passed the accident scene near Toucan Trail.
She said she didn't think much of it because the car had already been removed. And when she reached home, her husband, Brian, told her Bates had returned from his walk and was in bed.
"I was right there (at the accident) and I did not know it was him," said Sheldon. "I thought he was sleeping."
Around 11 p.m., the Sheldons realized that Bates wasn't home after all. At that point, they thought he might have gone to his best friend's house. They looked for him, but could not find him. As the night progressed, Sheldon prayed that her younger brother was not in trouble.
"He could take care of himself," Sheldon recalled thinking.
It was not until 6 a.m. Tuesday that Sheldon began calling hospitals and the jail asking about her brother.
Trooper Larry Coggins, an FHP spokesman, said the department could not release Bates' identity until they reached his relatives. By 9 a.m. Tuesday, troopers had delivered the news to Sheldon.
"The only way I knew it was him was from the tattoo on his arm . . . Tex," she said.
Sheldon described her brother as a laid back kind of guy. The siblings moved to Hernando County from Georgia two years ago but planned to return there.
Bates babysat his 2-year-old niece eight hours daily while Brian and Sherri Sheldon went to work. He preferred to spend time surfing the Internet or listening to music.
But Bates found his true voice in his poetry. Sheldon said his tough upbringing made him introverted, but her brother turned to poetry as a way to express his feelings.
His poem Nobody is published on www.poetry.com and in The Colors of Life: The International Library of Poetry:
"Nobody ever loved me: not my dad, not my mom, not my sisters who went to the prom, nobody ever cared, nobody ever shared their love with me, but could it be true that the only one that loved me was you?"
