With life, hope flows

A family slowly pieces itself back together following a shattering auto crash.

By ELISABETH DYER, Times Staff Writer
Published December 22, 2007

Brandon Moore, 15, who is recovering at Tampa General Hospital from a car accident that left him with a broken neck, plays video games as part of his therapy. His sister Alanna, 13, watches her mom Angela Moore hug her grandma Sue Shamuluas.
	[Melissa Lyttle | Times]

TAMPA - He was quarterback for his football team that night they won their Super Bowl game. It was any 15-year-old boy's dream.

It's the last memory Brandon Moore has of life before waking up on the floorboard of his dad's car staring at his sister's bloody hand. He lifted his head to look and then realized he couldn't move his body. His neck was broken.

Helicopters rushed the three Moore kids to the hospital. Alanna's head was gashed. CJ's pelvis was crushed.

A month later Brandon stares at his thumb, willing it to press a button on a Nintendo Wii controller. Video games are part of his therapy at Tampa General Hospital, but the fingers on his throwing arm won't cooperate. His tongue pokes out between his teeth, the way it always does when he concentrates, and he swings his arm.

You are a tad late, flashes on the screen.

- - -

Angie Moore, 34, arrived at St. Joseph's Hospital at about 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17 as the first of the three helicopters landed with her children. A friend who saw the accident had called, saying they were headed for the hospital.

CJ, 18, a senior at Robinson High School, had been in the front seat next to his father, who was driving.

Calvin Moore was traveling west on State Road 52 in a 2000 Chevy when he turned at County Road 583 in front of an eastbound Dodge truck, according to an accident report from the Florida Highway Patrol.

The father said he doesn't remember what happened. His leg was broken and he was cited for the accident. No one in either car wore seat belts, according to the report.

Alanna, 13, an eighth-grader at Stewart Middle School, was in a back passenger seat and was thrown into the windshield. She had head trauma and bleeding behind her eye. It took 150 stitches to pull her face together.

She thinks a family friend, 14-year-old Antwann Slater, who played football with Brandon and was next to her in the car, saved her life. Antwann had no long-term injuries, the Moores said.

"He wrapped his arms around me," Alanna said. She remembers nothing after that.

Calvin and Angie Moore are divorced, and Brandon lived with his father and played for the Pasco Police Athletic League. He was sleeping on the other side of Alanna, behind the driver's seat.

At the hospital, the first thing he said to his mother was, "Mommy, we won!"

Then he went into surgery to remove a vertebra blocking his spinal cord fluid. Doctors told his mother that Brandon's days of playing sports were over. He'd be lucky if he moved again.

The next day they bolted a 15-pound steel halo brace to his head. "It felt like they were squashing my skull," he said.

Alanna has always been close to Brandon. In a poem, she writes that the halo is a symbol that he's her angel.

- - -

Medical bills, home schooling, her job at the Cove Apartments where she's a leasing agent - Angie Moore has a million things to juggle.

She's learned to give CJ injections of blood thinner and to clean his wounds. She's learned what to expect with head trauma and how to help Alanna and Brandon through it. She's come to accept that her children may never be the same.

On a recent weekday at TGH, where Brandon was moved for rehabilitation, she leans in around his halo for a kiss. It's her lunch break. Brandon's lunch has grown cold as Alanna carefully feeds him Fritos. A scar zigs down her forehead and zags around her eye.

Mom has to go back to work. "I love you, Charlie Brown," she whispers to her son. His middle name is Charles. She sings a line she sang to him as a child. "Charlie Brown, he's a clown."

She has one more stop. She and Alanna, who spent the night at the hospital, head to their home south of Gandy Boulevard, where CJ is in bed.

She has had to cut back her hours to care for her children, whose medical bills she expects to reach into the millions of dollars. Brandon's father dipped into his savings when his insurance wouldn't cover inpatient rehabilitation, so Angie is applying for Medicaid.

When Brandon leaves rehabilitation, he will live with her and require round-the-clock care. The family wants to move to a bigger house that could accommodate the equipment he will need. To ease the transition, they want to live in Land O'Lakes, where he went to school.

For now, they make it with tenacity and humor. When Brandon complained about the daily suppositories nurses gave him, his mother put a temporary tattoo on his bottom - red lips. Last week he walked 225 steps, his first since the accident. He's lost 15 pounds and misses sleeping on his stomach, something he can't do for the next two to four months with the halo.

Angie's mother, Sue Shamuluas, has come from Fort Myers to help. Each morning to wake Brandon she does the grandma jig until he begs her to stop.

He promises to teach her the Soldier Boy dance when he's better. That might be Christmas day.

They haven't had time to decorate or buy presents.

And yet, it's not about any of that.

"I'm so blessed this holiday season," Angie says.

She has her children.

Elisabeth Dyer can be reached at 813 226-3321 or edyer@sptimes.com.

How to help

To help the Moore family, contact Marie Valenti, principal at Chiaramonte Elementary School at (813) 272-3066.

[Last modified December 22, 2007, 00:12:14]