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Widower shares his pain with jury

His wife died after a car wash worker with no driver's license hit her with an SUV.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published January 26, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Handout video] Video Watch the accident (Warning: graphic)

TAMPA - She woke him with kisses like always.

Then Brenda Lee Brown and her husband, McNeil "Mac" Brown, went into their toddler son's bedroom to begin his morning together.

On this day, Mac Brown had a presentation to finish by noon. Brenda stopped him as he rushed out to work, with 18-month-old Darnell in her arms.

"Baby, slow down," she told Mac. "Drive carefully. Remember, you're Darnell's daddy."

Mac Brown immediately felt re-centered. During their nearly five years of marriage, Brenda had taught him to put family before business.

He called her cell phone a few hours later, his deadline met, his burden relieved. He wanted to tell her, "I love you."

A paramedic answered the phone. He said Brenda had been in a serious accident at the Town 'N Country Car Wash on Hillsborough Avenue. He said Darnell appeared to be fine.

"Is my wife conscious?" Brown asked.

"No, sir," said the man, his voice choking, "she is not."

Mac Brown recounted the events of May 6, 2005, in a courtroom Thursday, his mood somber and his voice unsteady.

Jurors already had heard this week about the carwash employee who had no driver's license and accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake in a sport utility vehicle coming out of the washing tunnel. They had seen the black-and-white surveillance video of the vehicle careening into Brenda Brown just after she pushed her son's stroller to safety.

They knew Brenda Brown, 43, died two days later, on Mother's Day.

The carwash, fending off a lawsuit, last week admitted wrongdoing.

Trial attorneys have turned to arguing about whether the business should be punished for gross negligence in her death.

Mac Brown, who is vice president of a medical supply company, took the witness stand to share his love story.

It started with the suggestion by mutual friends for a blind date.

Mac said he and Brenda shared a "magical" three-hour phone call the night before they met for dinner.

"We fell in love at first sound," he said.

They took trips to Hawaii and California. He played golf, and she rode in the cart with him. He proposed on her birthday. It was the second marriage for both.

Brenda had a son from her first marriage. She and Mac wanted to have a child together. They couldn't conceive, so they adopted instead. They named Darnell after Mac's deceased best friend.

Brenda was a regular at the Town 'N Country Car Wash. By the time Mac got there the afternoon of May 6, he found only her blood on the pavement.

He prayed on his way to St. Joseph's Hospital, where she had been flown for treatment.

"I know we're in trouble," he said to God.

A physician said Brenda's injuries were "catastrophic." She showed no signs of life. Mac told jurors how he held Brenda in her hospital bed, told her that he loved her, stayed by her side until it came time to end the life support.

Female jurors cried. The carwash owner wiped away tears of her own.

Later, after jurors had gone, Circuit Judge Rex Barbas agreed with Mac Brown's attorneys that the carwash had been grossly negligent. Over the defense's objections, the judge said he would allow jurors to consider punitive damages when they deliberate today.

But before Brown left the stand, attorney Steve Yerrid made sure jurors noticed the gold band hugging his client's left ring finger.

"Why are you still wearing your wedding ring?" Yerrid asked.

Mac Brown did not hesitate.

"I'm madly in love with my wife."

[Last modified January 26, 2007, 01:25:48]