Terry Brennan and his wife Cynthia Newport had only been in New Orleans for a day when disaster struck. One moment, they were driving back from a day in the French Quarter and lunch at Antoine's and the next they were being strapped to a gurney and rushed to University Medical Center.
Their friend, Leo Gonzalez, had picked them up from the restaurant. The three of them were driving back in a black Lincoln town car on Elysian Fields Avenue when an Audi careening down the street struck them. All three were knocked unconscious and badly injured. It was not until they awoke in the hospital and checked NOLA.com | Times-Picayune that they realized they were three of many casualties caused by a man's crime spree. Brennan said he saw a photo of the mangled Lincoln and his wife's purse perched on top.
That Sunday afternoon (April 22), a man went on a citywide rampage, sending New Orleans police to multiple crime scenes across the city and ultimately shooting five people, including a police officer, and injuring others, including Newport, Brennan and Gonzalez, after a car chase ended in a Mid-City crash.
Once in custody, Charles Williams, 25, eventually told police he fatally shot Lil Ricky Goins, 38, while they were driving separately near the intersection of Elysian Fields Avenue and North Galvez Street. Goins kept driving after he was shot and hit Gonzalez's town car.
Two weeks later, Terry Brennan, 63, sat at PJ's coffeeshop in University Medical Center. Despite being knocked unconscious in the accident, Brennan suffered relatively minor wounds in the incident. He broke a few ribs and something puncture his back. As he sipped his coffee, a few healing cuts and bruises dotted his arms and shoulders.
His wife, 68, and Gonzalez, 87, however, still remain in the hospital in stable, but serious condition. Newport had shattered her hip, ruptured her diaphragm and fractured her femur.
"Everything is bruised and mangled," said Brennan.
Gonzalez, meanwhile, was fading in and out of consciousness with a neck fracture and a puncture lung.
Brennan has gotten to know the hospital well. He and his wife had planned to spend 10 days visiting Gonzalez and experiencing New Orleans. It was Brenna's first time in the city. Instead, he has spent nearly every moment of the past two weeks at UMC, sleeping by her side in a hospital bed with their luggage propped in the corner.
It is a dismal situation, but Brennan said he is "surprised and happy that all of us are alive."
He is now trying to navigate how to comfortably transport his wife back to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where the two live and a rehabilitation facility awaits her. When Newport was taken to the hospital, her black purse did not come with her. Photos from the accident show it sitting on top of the Lincoln at the scene. However, when she asked officials for it, no one seemed to know where it had gone.
When asked about the purse, NOPD spokesman Gary Scheetz told NOLA.com |Times-Picayune that NOPD "is working to track down items related to the accident that occurred in the 2400 block of Elysian Fields Avenue" and "will return the missing items to the victims as soon as they are located."
"It's one thing if we couldn't prove the purse was in the car, but the purse is right there in the photo, so where did the purse go?" Brennan said. "Ambulance people don't know. Hospital doesn't know. NOPD doesn't know. Tow place doesn't know."
Therefore, air travel is off the table. Even if her identification were to surface, Newport could not feasibly sit on a plane in her current condition. For now, the two plan on road tripping.
"We'll likely, out of our own pocket, rent an RV. Buy a bed from Wal-Mart, fix it up inside and drive the most direct route through Texas. We'll need to go through cities so we can stop at a hospital if needed," said Brennan.
Outside PJ's Brennan seemed less angry with the circumstances than dejected that one man's belligerence had caused so much damage to not only him and his friends, but also dozens of others.
"What gets me about things is no matter how people feel about guns or no guns--this is violence. Violence upon people. Guns don't kill people, but what guns do is injure people in cars that kill people. It's all part of a vicious cycle of the same thing. If it wasn't for that beginning stretch of violence, we might not have gotten hit."
While he is trying not to let the incident taint his image of New Orleans, each passing day at UMC hammers home the reality of a vacation ruined by violence.
"I'm trying to get my mind in the right spot so that I don't equate this whole ordeal with the city itself," he said shaking his head. "I live in a real humble community of nice happy people of Las Cruces, New Mexico and it doesn't make you feel safe to come around if this is how you could end up."
He looked around the empty hallways of University Medical Center, before dropping his head and taking a long sip of coffee.
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