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Traffic stop cut life short, man says

Slowed by deputy trying to get mom to hospital

By Clay Bailey

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Wayne Ables knew his car tag had expired at the end of February.

That wasn’t a priority in the early morning hours of March 12. His only concern was getting his ailing 83-year-old mother to the hospital.

So when a Shelby County Sheriff’s deputy stopped him for an expired tag, he thought the officer would let him get his mother to Saint Francis Hospital-Bartlett, less than a mile away. He even suggested the deputy follow him and write the ticket there.

The deputy, whom the department has not identified, declined, according to Ables, and began checking Ables’ license and insurance while calling an ambulance to take Vernice Ables from the scene.

Meanwhile, the elderly woman’s condition worsened. Her breathing became shallow, her body stiffened and her face slumped onto her walking stick.

“She pretty much died in the back seat of my car,” Ables said.

The Sheriff’s Office is investigating.

Vernice Ables suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which affects breathing. She was recently hospitalized to remove blood clots from her lungs and was struggling with her breathing. An oxygen cylinder was her constant companion.

Just after midnight on March 12, she called her son from her Cordova home off Dexter east of Germantown Parkway. Her breathing problems were worse. She wanted to stay at his house on the other side of the parkway.

Once he got her in the car, she wanted to go to Saint Francis Hospital-Bartlett. Ables said it was between 1 and 1:30 a.m. There was little traffic. He could make the short trip quickly.

Ables was in his black 2004 Chevrolet Avalanche with his wife, Denise, when he picked up his mother. The Avalanche was easier for her to get into than Denise’s 2008 Chevy Impala.

The problem with his car was the expired tag. He had tried to get a new sticker, but a cracked windshield caused him to fail inspection. His mother’s previous hospitalization delayed taking care of the problem.

Ables said he wasn’t speeding that morning. He didn’t want to draw any attention. When he saw the deputy’s cruiser on Germantown Parkway as he crossed Interstate 40, he hoped the expired tag would go undetected. The deputy stopped him in the Wolfchase Galleria parking lot near Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

When Ables asked the deputy if he could get his mother to the hospital, he said the deputy questioned his mother in the back seat, asking her age, medical history, whether she was OK.

Meanwhile, Vernice Ables was asking her son to roll the windows down further, in spite of the cold, to see if she could breathe any better.

The traffic stop was frustrating. Ables could see the top of the hospital building from the parking lot he pulled into when the deputy turned on his blue lights. Yet, the deputy wouldn’t let him take his mother there — a trip that, in midday traffic, takes less than four minutes.

The deputy told Ables he could not follow people after a stop, and an ambulance was on the way.

“If I could have taken my mom when I first told him, I could have gotten her to the hospital. She would not have had the indignity of screaming and begging to breathe in the back seat of my car,” he said.

Those blue lights on the deputy’s cruiser may provide some clarification. The dash cameras on county patrol cars activate when the blue lights come on. They may provide documentation of what was said, and the actions of the deputy and the family.

Steve Shular, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office, said the department is trying to determine whether the Ables family asked for an ambulance or whether the deputy took it upon himself to call one.

“Based on Mr. Ables’ call, the Sheriff’s Office Bureau of Professional Standards is looking at the video and all particulars of the incident,” Shular said in response to a request to view the footage. “We won’t release the video until the investigation is over.”

He said no administrative charges had been filed against the deputy.

Ables said late this week that he did not file an official complaint, but the series of events at least warranted a review.

Ables knows his mother probably would have died that night. Doctors at the hospital told him that.

Still, he thinks the encounter with the deputy could have been handled with more compassion.

“My mom is gasping, and he wants to see my insurance papers,” Ables said. “He went to his car when I gave him my license. This whole time, there is an 83-year-old lady gasping for air, and he’s asking for her age and health history.”

When the ambulance finally came and his mother was on her way to the hospital, where she would be pronounced dead, the deputy let Ables go without writing a ticket for the expired tag.

The deputy’s last words, according to Ables, were “Don’t speed.”

“And he wasn’t nice about that,” Ables said. “No compassion at all. Not a bit of compassion.”

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/mar/21/traffic-stop-cut-life-short-man-says/