FAST LANE HAS UGLY REMINDER FOR LUCKY TEEN

SCOTT CITY -- A worn Florida Gators hat displayed on a chest in Blake Phelps' bedroom will serve as a reminder of the worst experience in his life but one he hopes he'll never forget.

The 19-year-old from Scott City survived an automobile accident May 16 in which the 14-year-old driver of the car was killed. Phelps suffered a broken neck and narrowly escaped paralysis.

"They said I was a one-in-a-million case; that I should have been dead three times over," he said.

He was wearing the Gators cap his favorite on the night of the accident. But it's been replaced by a constricting neck brace, one he'll wear for six to eight more weeks.

Though he isn't paralyzed, doctors have warned against ever again wrestling or playing football a sport he won a college scholarship for a year ago. For now, he can't even climb the stairs in his parents home and has to stay in bed most of the time. His recovery, doctors have told him, will be slow.

He said the accident, one he remembers little about, made him feel he's no longer "invincible."

"We were just riding around. I had met these guys, and they were going to Dexter so they said they could drop me off at my house," he said. "He was driving crazy all night. I guess I should have gotten out. But I didn't."

Phelps had been partying like he did most every Saturday night with Josh Bowman of Dexter, whom he thought was 18, and Gilbert Faulkner of Bloomfield for several hours. The three had met for the first time earlier that night at Capaha Park in Cape Girardeau. He admits they had a small amount of beer, but "not much."

By 3:30 a.m., Phelps was ready to go home. They headed for Dexter, where Bowman lived, and were going to drop Phelps off along the way. But they never made it.

Police said the car was speeding when it failed to make a curve on the South Kingshighway-Interstate 55 on-ramp. The car flew into the air, overturned several times and landed in a grassy area between I-55 and Highway 74.

"Once we were in the air, I don't remember anything. They said we overturned a couple of times, but I don't even remember when I flew out," he said.

None of the teen-agers were wearing seat belts.

When Phelps' head smashed into the closed t-top on the car, the impact caused his neck to snap. He doesn't remember landing in the grass.

"It happened in the blink of an eye really," he said.

He was knocked unconscious and doesn't know how long he was out.

"I woke up and saw the car, but I was really dazed. I didn't know my neck had been broken," he said.

He tried to walk, although he's not sure why, other than he wanted to look for the other two. He struggled to his feet three times, but staggered and fell again. Doctors told him it's a miracle the falls didn't sever additional vertebrae along his spinal cord.

"Every time I got up it should have killed me," he said.

After the third fall, he was again unconscious. Some truckers who saw the accident called police, and paramedics came a short time later, bound him to a stretcher and took him to the hospital.

Bowman was declared dead at the scene of massive head injuries. It was the second motor vehicle death in Cape Girardeau this year. Faulkner, who was in the back seat, was treated and released at a Cape Girardeau hospital. All had been ejected from the car.

Police said the car, a 1992 Nissan hatchback, had been stolen two weeks before from a Dexter car dealership. Phelps said Bowman told him and others at the park the car was a present from his mother for his high school graduation.

Phelps, an admitted "party animal," came home from the hospital Friday. He's had lots of time to think, he said.

"I used to live life in the fast lane, but I'm rethinking that," he said. "I've always been the wild one known where every party was. I like hanging with the wild crowd.

"It's like when some people say they'll never get AIDS or something like that. You just take it for granted it won't happen."

His mother, LaDonna, said she's grateful her son wasn't killed and wants him and other teens, like her 14-year-old daughter, to learn from the accident.

"His life has changed, it will never been the same," he said. "But I hope it will give him the courage to stand up and tell other kids what kind of things can get you into trouble," she said.

That's where the Gators hat ~comes in.

"It was always his favorite," she said. "But now it's a reminder of what he went through; what we all went through."