On
July 24, 2005, Katelyn Melia was traveling in her car with
her two year old son Ryan, on their way to do a last minute
errand before the scheduled birth of her daughter just hours
away. Katelyn was in an intersection when her SUV was struck
on the drivers side. Her car spun about 5 or 6 times, flipped
over and slammed into a utility pole. While Katelyn went
unconscious almost immediately, Ryan luckily escaped without
injury. Her daughter, Jillian Hope, was delivered by emergency
C-Section at Boston Medical Center. Jillian was not breathing
and had no heart rate at birth. The doctors resuscitated
her and immediately she started having a severe seizure.
She was put into a medically induced coma. It wasn’t until
about 3 weeks later when Jillian had an MRI, Several doctors
from all over agreed that it was the WORST case of brain
damage they had ever seen and that there was no hope at
all that baby Jillian would survive. Jillian was taken off
life support at Boston Medical on August 19, 2005 where
she survived 14 hours, and died on August 20, 2005 with
her parents by her side.
Katelyn was struck by a man that hadn’t
had a license since 1982, he was classified as a habitual
traffic offender in Massachusetts. He had 6 prior OUI offenses.
He was arrested at the scene of the accident after walking
away and pretending he had no part in it. A bystander had
noticed a man stumbling around, and when police approached
him to ask him questions, his speech was slurred. When he
was taken to the station, he was given a urinalysis which
tested positive for 8 different substances, along with possession
of class A and D drugs. This man was not convicted in vehicular
homicide or manslaughter because with no witnesses, they
could not prove that he ran a red light. He literally got
away with murder.
