Tragic ending to police chase takes family from ‘absolute joy to total devastation’

Frank McLemore was a beloved husband, father and grandfather who wore the title “Paw Paw” as a badge of honor. He was also a skilled electrical engineer and analytical problem solver.

Saturday night, the man who had always been in control lost that when a stolen vehicle being chased by police slammed into his car at Crawford Road and 17th Street in Phenix City, an intersection he had navigated tens of thousands of times.

The tragic series of events left his two grown children to deal with their father’s death and the serious injuries of their mother, who is in a Birmingham, Ala., hospital.

“The man who could fix anything can’t fix this,” observed his daughter Zoe Williams, late Tuesday night as she talked about the life-altering events of the last five days.

Since news of that crash reached Frank and Erin McLemore’s two children — Zoe and her older brother Jim — they have moved forward in the way their dad taught them.

“My dad would always put his hand in my back and give me a small push, then he would say, ‘Take care of your mother,’” Zoe said.

As their family deals with Frank’s death and Erin’s hospitalization and serious injuries, Zoe remembers those times her dad pushed her toward her mother.

“I know my daddy, and he would say, ‘I am dead and gone and there is nothing you can do for me right now,’” she said. “‘Go take care of your mother.’”

Erin is still in the intensive care unit at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Hospital receiving treatment for multiple injuries sustained in the crash. She will be required to undergo several months of intensive rehabilitation care.

The last days of normalcy

The last time Jim spent any real time with his father was on Thursday night when he stopped by his father’s electronics business on Crawford Road, about a block from the intersection where the vehicle being pursued by Columbus police hit the car being driven by Frank.

A major family event was coming: Jim’s youngest daughter, Lauren McLemore, was getting engaged Saturday and a family celebration was going to ensue. Erin McLemore, who graduated from Central High in 1967, was also preparing to celebrate her 50th reunion.

“He was so excited about Lauren getting engaged,” Jim said. “He said Mom was excited about her 50th class reunion and had gotten a new dress.”

Jim said he and his dad had a special relationship cultivated over 48 years.

“I always told everybody, he was the brains and I was the brawn,” Jim said.

They talked a little about the logistical issues with the Central High School reunion starting at 6 p.m. at the Central Activities Center in Phenix City and the engagement party beginning two hours later at the Country Club of Columbus.

“He told me not to worry, they could do both,” Jim said.

Zoe lives and teaches in north Alabama. She drove home to Smiths Station late Friday night, waiting for the traffic to clear in Birmingham before she left Athens, Ala.

Usually when she and her family made the late-night drive home, it was her father who waited for them to arrive. This time, her dad was in bed and her mom was up about 2 a.m.

“We all got up Saturday morning and had breakfast,” Zoe said. “Mom fixed Dad a Western omelet and sauteed the onions and peppers. I think she even made biscuits and sausage.”

They watched an episode of “The Big Bang Theory” that her parents had recorded.

“They taped everything,” she said. “They didn’t watch commercials.”

Zoe brought her new dachshund puppy, Cricket, home to meet her parents. The McLemores have always been a family that owned dachshunds so the dog was greeted warmly.

After breakfast, Zoe’s dad took the puppy and went out to the woodworking shop behind the house.

“He was holding Cricket, walking toward the shop, talking puppy talk,” Zoe said.

The next time she would see her father, he was fighting for his life in a hospital emergency room.

Everything changed shortly after 8 Saturday night. Stewart Kite had proposed to Lauren on bended knee on the country club golf course. She had accepted and the party had started. Jim, his wife, Angie, and the rest the family were all in one place.

Frank and Erin McLemore were not there and Jim sent his father a text to see if they were on the way. There was no answer.

The family was minutes from going from “absolute joy to total devastation,” Jim said.

The call that changed everything

The world changed when Zoe got a call from her mother’s phone. The voice belonged to a nurse at Midtown Medical Center who informed Zoe that her parents had been in a crash. Zoe was not told the extent the situation, but she could hear her mother’s voice in the background.

“She sounded weak,” Zoe said.

Zoe told her husband, John, they needed to leave and go to the hospital. Jim quickly sensed something was wrong and followed his sister to the car. The two went together to the hospital.

At 8:23 p.m., Zoe posted on her Facebook page, “Immediate Prayer Request Please!!”

They found their parents in the emergency room, their mom in Trauma Room 4 and their father in Trauma Room 5.

It did not take long to figure out the gravity of the situation. Frank was in intense pain, but still conscious. Erin was seriously injured, in pain and dazed.

Frank’s injuries were the most serious, as the stolen vehicle had struck his side of their Nissan Murano. Zoe and Jim spent time in the trauma room with their dad before he was wheeled away for emergency surgery.

“He was cold, clammy and sweating profusely,” Zoe said.

But he was able to carry on a conversation with his children.

“We were sitting there right before surgery,” Jim said. “Even though he was hurting, he was very focused in his responses. I got his phone and he began to give me passwords to phones and systems, telling me things he thought I needed to know.”

It was almost like the 72-year-old electrical engineer with a degree from Auburn was downloading, Jim and Zoe said.

“In retrospect, he had been downloading for months,” Zoe said. “The last time I was home, he went over all the bank account and insurance information with me. He had told me where family photos he had downloaded were. He just wanted to make sure I knew where everything was.”

Jim said there was nothing the medical personnel could do to ease his dad’s pain.

“He was saying how much he hurt, and at one point I looked at the nurse and she said they had given him every thing they could,” Jim said. “... I could look at his color — it was jaundice color — and know it was serious. They gave him two units of blood and his color didn’t get any better.”

There was a moment of levity just before Frank went into surgery. His personal effects were brought to the trauma room. Zoe began to go through her father’s wallet, and noted there was $103 in cash in there.

“He very quickly scolded me and told me that that was his money,’” she said.

They all laughed.

Just before they took Frank back to the operating room, Zoe had one final conversation with her dad.

“I kissed him and told him I loved him and he told me he loved me,” Zoe said. “As they were taking him down the hall, I told him I would see him in a little bit, but he didn’t hear me because he was too busy telling them he hurt.”

From bad to worse

Just after midnight, a women in scrubs came into the waiting room and asked to see the family.

Both of the children knew it wasn’t good. Their mother was having a CT scan and nurses were working to get her transferred to a hospital in Birmingham or Atlanta because of the extent of her head injury.

Jim, Zoe and their families had a few minutes to process the news that their father was dead. After talking to medical personnel and family friends, including Dr. David White of Phenix City, they made the decision to withhold the information from their mother. She had been asking about her husband of 49 years, five months and 23 days.

“It’s the hardest thing I had to do, keeping that from her,” Jim said.

They had been told to begin to prepare their mother for the news.

“I was sitting there and she asked again,” Zoe said. “I told her that there had been complications and they were working on dad.”

At that point, Erin’s blood pressure began to fall quickly.

“I had already lost one parent that day and I didn’t want to lose another,” Zoe said.

The wait to get Erin transferred to another hospital was taking time. That is when Amy Blalock, a night registered nurse at Midtown Medical, began to get creative.

“We could not airlift her because of the weather,” Jim said. “There were no ambulances available in Columbus to transport her to Birmingham. Amy went above and beyond for us. She called Grady Hospital in Atlanta and convinced them to send an ambulance to Columbus to take my mother to Birmingham.”

At 5:30 a.m. Sunday, Erin was taken to UAB, where she was immediately placed into ICU care. At 4 that afternoon, Jim and Zoe made the decision to tell their mother that her husband had died. There was a medical team outside the door in case it triggered additional complications.

“She was blank-faced, and just said, ‘I hate that,” Zoe said. “Then she started asking a lot of questions.”

As difficult as that process was, Jim and Zoe have fully focused their attention on their mother and getting her health.

“What we are doing right now is exactly what Dad would have wanted us to do,” Jim said. “He would tell us not to stand here and cry and boo-hoo. He would say move forward with life.”

One of the details Jim and Zoe have not dealt with is the funeral arrangements for their father. His body was released back to the family on Tuesday and Vance Memorial Chapel in Phenix City will handle the arrangements.

“We have not done that yet, and I know some people want us to, but I don’t want to do any type of service without our mom there,” Jim said.

The calls and social media posts they’ve received from friends has helped the family cope, Zoe said.

“The outpouring of love and support has been overwhelming,” she said. “Just got look at my Facebook page.”

Jim said he hasn’t dwelt on the details of the crash that caused his father’s death. A time for that will come later, he said.

“I don’t know a whole lot about it,” he said. “I know police were chasing two guys at a high speed. And this car crashed into my parents and murdered my dad. Right now, that is just not my priority.”

This story was originally published June 7, 2017 at 4:51 PM with the headline "Tragic ending to police chase takes family from ‘absolute joy to total devastation’."