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Car crash in Germany takes life of soldier

Christopher Seal was on his way to an airport to catch a flight to St. Petersburg for his first Christmas home in five years.

By ALEX LEARY
Published December 24, 2005

Army Spc. Christopher "Travis" Seal offered his girlfriend the front seat as he headed to an airport in Germany to catch a flight home for Christmas in St. Petersburg.

She refused.

You'll be cramped on the plane for hours, she told him.

A short while later, Seal and the driver, a fellow soldier, were critically injured after the car crashed into a truck on the autobahn during bad weather. His girlfriend was treated and released.

On Wednesday, four days after the accident, Seal, 24, died at a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany. It was to be his first Christmas home in five years.

"As usual, he was going to surprise me," said his mother, Barbara Estes. "He said he was coming home the 19th, but really it was the 17th. Christmas was always so special for me and the kids."

Seal graduated from Pinellas Park High School in 2000 and then enlisted, wanting to follow his brother-in-law, an Army captain. He served with the 272nd MP Company in Iraq from March 2004 to March this year and was up for a one-year deployment to Afghanistan early next year.

"It's devastating. These kinds of things aren't supposed to happen," Seal's older brother, Charles Cox Jr., said Friday. "We always thought if this day ever came, it was because he was killed in battle. Not because of this."

Details about the driver were unavailable from the Army on Friday. The driver was severely injured but survived, Cox said. The man's family is from Gulfport, Miss., and had been displaced to Maryland after losing their home to Hurricane Katrina, Cox said.

The Army flew Cox and Estes to Frankfurt on Sunday, where they visited the hospital. Seal was on a ventilator, and doctors said the left side of his brain was not working.

"There was no hope," Estes said. Nine and a half hours after the ventilator was disconnected, Seal died.

"He had the greatest smile in the world," Estes said, near tears. "I was very proud of him. Very proud."

Popular and outgoing, Seal worked at the Albertsons on 54th Avenue S during high school and spent his free time on the water. Had he not gone into the military, he probably would have been a captain of a charter fishing boat in the Keys, family said. He volunteered for service in Afghanistan so he could buy a boat.

"That was always his dream," said his sister, Ashley Lamm.

While stationed in Baghdad, Seal bought an Iraqi cell phone so he could keep in touch with his mother. "He was always so upbeat," she said. "I don't think he wanted to worry me too much."

He was proud of his apartment in Mannheim, Germany, which was decorated in beach gear, and his collection of DVD movies, 363 in all, she said.

Funeral plans are pending after the return of Seal's body from Germany. His roommate will be the military escort, and his girlfriend will attend, too, Estes said.

"She felt totally guilty for sitting in the back seat," Estes said. "I told her right off that this is not her fault. This was a horrible, horrible accident."

Alex Leary can be reached at 727 893-8472 or leary@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 24, 2005, 01:09:13]