news

My brother was asked to be a pall-bearer for Crissa. He was so much closer to her than anyone in our family, since he and her father were best friends growing up. I just sat and cried last night when I thought of my baby brother carrying the tiny casket of the little girl we all held in our arms as a baby. It's still just so mind-numbing.


Here is the latest from our local news on Crissa (link available if you click on the title of this post):

The parents of an 11-year-old girl who died after being pulled out of Lake Hartwell on Memorial Day said that their daughter did know how to swim.

The girl’s parents said that Crissa Powell must have panicked when she couldn’t feel the bottom of the lake after she jumped off a dock.

She was under water for about 10 minutes before witnesses were able to locate her and pull her out.

Two medical students performed CPR to keep the girl alive until she could be taken to the hospital, but she was taken off life support on Tuesday evening and died.

Her parents, Crystal and Nye Powell said that they kept a lock of their daughter's hair and a card with her handprints on it.

Crystal Powell said that she was with her daughter when she died.

"They moved her over in the bed a little bit so that I could get in with her and tell her goodbye. I waited there with her for a while," Crystal Powell said.

The Powells also thanked the witnesses who tried to save their daughter.

Crissa Powell was a fifth-grader at Berea Elementary School in Greenville County. She turned 11 earlier this month.

The school announced plans to plant a tree on school grounds in her honor.

Update

Crissa's battle for life has ended.

She was determined to be brain-dead, and her parents made the heart-wrenching decision to pull the plug this afternoon.

Not long after I wrote earlier today, Crissa went to be with the Lord.

Please continue to keep her family in your prayers. They are all completely devastated.

My brother went to see her today. It must have been right before.

It's hard to imagine that the little girl I once held as a baby has passed away before any of us. 11 years is not long enough on this earth.

Note: Pic is of Crissa (in the purple) and her sister a couple of Halloween's ago.

post-weekend

I got my NordicTrack today... in all its fragmented glory. Every possible piece is separate from each other. Wow...this is going to be an ordeal just to put it together. I hope it only needs a Phillips head (just kidding - I do have more tools than that)!

We have our first Furman Lakeside band rehearsal tonight. I'm excited to have a semi-obligatory ensemble to play in during the summer. Don't get me wrong, I love the band I play in year-round. It's just nice to not HAVE to go unless I want to. Concerts in the summer are done in a week, with no further obligation unless you want to do the next one. The year-round concerts require a month or more of rehearsal attendance to be able to play.

Since we were off yesterday, I've been trying to play catch-up again today. I think our sales department is making up for it too LOL.

Oh, I finally bought a little half-gigabyte flash drive for work. I can stop emailing important documents to myself and just save them on that instead. I swear I've heard them called "jump drives" before too. That's what I went looking for when I went shopping. Maybe not!

No new news on Crissa. Things are, thankfully, no worse, but sadly, no better. Please continue to keep praying for her. She needs all she can get.

Prayers needed

A little friend of mine was in an accident today. The whole situation has actually made the news, too.

Our childhood friend's (mine and my brother) oldest daughter (only 11 years young) was rescued from a local lake earlier today. She was climbing up a pier ladder and either jumped or was knocked off. No one is really sure, but she cannot swim, and she's a very obedient little girl, and she wouldn't have done something she wasn't supposed to do. The other girl with her turned for a moment, turned back, and she was gone. She immediately started screaming for help, but she was not found for around 5 or more minutes, only 9 feet from where she fell in.

Some people nearby were nurses-in-training, and performing CPR until EMS arrived. They said she was blue and had so faint a pulse that EMS couldn't even shock her. Brain damage has already been mentioned and partly confirmed. That is, if she even pulls through.

I think of her little face and cannot imagine it being blue. It's almost unreal.

I was ok until I saw her school picture pop up on TV when I turned to the news earlier. Then I just cried.

The last time I saw them all was on Halloween. I even got a cute picture of the girls I had always planned to copy and send over to their mom and dad.

Lauren, my niece, is 11 also. I can't imagine that happening to her.

She's just too young.

Please put Chrissa in your prayers tonight.