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Teen's family, friends keep vigil
By CHRIS TISCH © St. Petersburg Times, published January 18, 2001 Full of will and energy, Angela Bernardini has mapped her future. She has been accepted at the International Academy of Art and Design in Tampa, where she plans to study interior design -- a craft her mother taught her to love. She became engaged to her boyfriend of four yearsat Christmastime. They've made plans to have careers, a family, a nice home. At 17, Angela has the maturity of an adult and the zip of a teen, her friends and family say. The senior at Largo High School likes to sing jingles from television commercials, sometimes grabbing a hair brush -- or even her boyfriend's finger -- and crooningas if it were a microphone. She often whips out lines from her favorite movies, Grease and Drop Dead Fred. She showers her cats, Sammy and Precious, with hugs and kisses. But now, Angela lies surrounded by machines in a room at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg. One machine breathes for her; another monitors the pressure on her brain. Her hazel eyes areclosed; her blond hair lies across a white bed sheet. Red scrapes lace her arms. Her only movement comes when she is pinched. She is in a coma. Doctors have told family members that Angela has a good chance of survival. But seeing her so still and helpless is difficult. Family members wait in a room outside her unit, staring at her photos. "The doctor said he thinks she has a good chance of recovery," said Robert Strange, her fiance. "And she's young, and she's a fighter." Angela, a Pinellas Park resident, was critically injured Friday afternoon when her Mazda 626 was struck by another car at Missouri Avenue and Belleair Road in Clearwater. A helicopter flew her to Bayfront, where she has remained unconscious. Angela's mother, Tina Pellegrino, was summoned to the hospital shortly after the accident. Both she and Strange have left only once since then, to shower. The driver of the car that hit Angela's car, Robert Lee Knowles, ran a red light, police said. Officers said he also was driving with a suspended license and was wanted on two misdemeanor warrants. He was treated for injuries at Bayfront and then taken to jail. "I really haven't been thinking about that part of it," Pellegrino said of the other driver. "I'm angry, and that's all I can think about that now." Family and friends say Angela attended church every Wednesday and Sunday. She adopted her religious devotion from her aunt and her grandmother. She also is a poet. When happiness or pain is on her mind, her feelings gush from pen to paper. "A lot of them are religious or about love, pain, hurt," her mother said. Pellegrino said Angela, whom friends call Angie, was driving from the high school to her job at the Pinellas County courthouse in Clearwater, where she is part of an on-the-job training program. Since the accident, family members have kept an eye on the machine that monitors the pressure on her brain. Every so often, nurses must turn the switch of a tube that has been put into her head so that the fluid surrounding her brain can drip out. She responds to pinching, but cannot speak or open her eyes. "She's moving and things like that, so that's good," Strange said. Though they laugh when talking about her energy level or her intelligence, her loved ones get tears in their eyes when they talk about her injuries. But they think she will wake up soon and recover fully. "She'll be back to my same old Angie baby," Pellegrino said. She said Angela has been visited at the hospital by some of her teachers and friends. Some of her friends and classmates have been turned away because there were just too many. The family is planning a candlelight vigil for her at 8 p.m. Friday at Sixth Street and Sixth Avenue in St. Petersburg, which is just outside the hospital. Everyone is invited to attend. "Bring a candle and a prayer," her mother said.
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