A decade ago, Virginia Fiess and her husband Keith were Eastern Washington wheat farmers. They had celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary with a cruise to Mexico. They looked forward to retirement on property near Sun Lakes.
On Nov. 19, 1994, Virginia Fiess lost nearly everything but her life.
"We were on I-5 down by Centralia, coming home from vacation," the 59-year-old Everett woman said. "It was after midnight. I was asleep. My husband was driving and my sister was in the back seat."
With speech affected by a trauma-related stroke suffered that terrible night, Fiess slowly related what happened.
"A fellow hit us from behind going over 100 miles an hour," Fiess said. "It pushed us into the (opposing) lanes, where we hit another car. He left the scene. When they caught up with him, he said he had hit a deer."
Feiss’ husband and sister died in the crash. So did the woman in the oncoming car.
The driver, a 24-year-old man, pleaded guilty and was given an eight-year sentence in June of 1995.
He was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide, one count of vehicular assault and hit-and-run injury, according to the Thurston County Prosecutor’s Office. He served five years and was released from prison in 2000.
Fiess was sentenced to life in a wheelchair.
She suffered a C1 and C2 incomplete spinal cord injury. Her neck wasn’t broken, but her head was pulled and stretched from the top vertebrae. She can’t walk — she lost most of her motor functions. But she didn’t lose her sense of touch and feels intense pain.
"She can feel everywhere, all the aches and pains," said Cindy Cargill, 42, a family friend who shares her south Everett home with Fiess.
After more than four months at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and then at St. Luke’s in Spokane, Fiess returned to the family’s leased farm north of Moses Lake.
Her daughter and son-in-law, Brian and Shannon Thompson, tried farming there for a couple years before moving Fiess home with them to Snohomish. Her daughter cared for her until recently, when Fiess moved in with Cargill, who had met Brian Thompson through work.
"When I first woke up from the accident, I could move a toe. Gradually I got some movement back," Fiess said. "I’ve had physical therapy and speech therapy."
Her left hand was affected by the stroke, but in the last six months she has moved it some. Fiess has use of her right hand. She volunteers with Bridge Ministries, a Christian charity, making custom-stamped greeting cards.
Cargill helps with dressing and bathing. Fiess swims several times a week at the Hal Moe Pool in Snohomish. She bowls every Saturday at Strawberry Lanes in Marysville, and winces through painful stretching exercises morning and night.
Each month, she receives a check from Thurston County, a payment on the driver’s court-ordered restitution. The monthly sum is an absurd $23.84.
Scott Tinney, a collections officer with the Thurston County Clerk’s Office, said payments on the initial $130,083.39 order are set by the state Department of Corrections "based on the person’s ability to pay." The driver also makes payments for court costs and to families of the other victims, Tinney said.
Asked how she endured so much loss at once, Fiess could hardly speak. "I try not to think about it," she said between crying sounds. "There’s no way to answer."
She spoke of her husband, a joker, an honest, hard-working man "who enjoyed going out and having a good time."
"I was always the designated driver," said Fiess, adding that her husband drove an Oldsmobile Toranado because he thought it was safer than a small car. She missed his funeral because she was in the hospital.
At the man’s sentencing, where Fiess said his drinking and the hit-and-run added to his penalty, "he didn’t show any remorse. He never apologized."
"I wonder if he ever thinks about it," Fiess said. "He got off with nothing, other than a record. For everybody else involved, we’re sentenced for the rest of our lives."
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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