Paige MacKenzie Johnson was born July 20, 1987 at 547pm at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington DC to Matt and Trish.

Prior to moving to Ashburn, Virginia, Paige’s early years were spent in Springfield and Annandale.  She attended preschool at “The Talent House” in Fairfax, just like her Mom.  There were quite a few memories she made while a toddler there.

 Paige attended Ashburn Elementary Kindergarten thru 3^rd grade, St. Theresa Catholic School 4^th thru 8^th grade and Bishop Denis J. O’Connell High School, in Arlington, 9^th thru 12^th grade.

Paige played soccer for Loudoun Youth Soccer Assocation for 10 years.  She also played Basketball for her Catholic Youth Organization for 5 years.  Her great love was cheerleading.  She did this with Bishop O’Connell during her 9^th and 10^th grade years and with the nationally ranked Cheer Madness All-Stars for 4 years.  She was her Squad’s Captain her senior year.

Paige was a Big Sister to 4 beautiful siblings: Lauren, Dylan, Katelyn and Christopher.   She was also a “Big Sister” and great friend to many. 

After graduating from Bishop O’Connell, Paige decided to follow in her Grandmothers footsteps and teach. After visiting many college campuses, Paige fell in love with East Carolina University, She knew right away that she would head to Greenville, North Carolina in the fall.

Paige loved it down at ECU and was enjoying the new experience of what was to be a great beginning to her college career.

Events of December 1, 2005

The following is comprised of Paige’s statements, the police report, and the Private Investigators report for the night of December 1, 2005

At 11:54 pm, Paige was out with friends and walking around the campus town.  She stopped to talk to some friends, and then went to cross the street to speak to another friend. Paige was almost across the street and up on the sidewalk when Paige was hit by a car driven by Kristen Ray Adams of Raleigh, NC.   Ms. Adams had made an improper left turn and shortened the corner resulting in her driving left of center of a normal driving route.   Police and emergency crews responded.  Paige never lost consciousness and was able to talk to the police officers and EMT personnel.  Ms. Adams was asked questions on the scene.  Although there were inconsistence’s in her story, she was not administered any field sobriety test or issued any citations by police.   The road being traveled was also known to house many Fraternity’s and Sorority’s.  Ms. Adams should have been arrested and charged with NC Law GS 20-141.4; Felony and misdemeanor death by vehicle; felony serious injury by vehicle; aggravated offenses; repeat felony death by vehicle.   Paige however was issued a citation for not crossing the street in a crosswalk, although there was no “crosswalk” per se, there was an implied crosswalk for her to cross the street in. Paige was taken by ambulance to Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greenville.   Officer T.L. Gilbreath did travel to the emergency room to administer a breathalyzer test to Paige.   We can’t figure out why this made sense to the Police to do this.

Our events from 2 December are listed next.   

After a complete lack of cooperation from the Greenville Police Department, we hired a private investigator.  The investigator spoke with the police officers involved and interviewed several witnesses.  Below are the findings:

The officer clearing the accident scene drew it as Ms. Adams explained it.  The vehicle was on the wrong side of the road.  The sketch clearly showed Paige almost to the sidewalk which is an implied crosswalk.  Paige would have had no responsibility to look in the improper path for a car.  Had Ms. Adams been paying full attention to her driving, this accident would have never happened.  The investigation also found that Ms Adams had a prior accident in the Fourth Street area a few months before hitting Paige.

The police report had many errors. The officer also altered the police report after it was filed to make a change to Ms. Adams speed after Paige’s death.  The officer had incorrectly entered witness statements and had misspelled their names.   Frankly the report could have been written better by a 6^th Grader.

Greenville Police took the case to Assistant DA Tonya Oliver and felt criminal charges were applicable against Kristen Adams regarding “Misdemeanor Death by Motor Vehicle” (as sited above) however, Ms. Oliver based on the police report, the DA declined to charge Ms Adams.   After the investigation was done clearly showing Ms Adams was completely at fault and after many attempts to contact and discuss this case with the DA, we were denied a meeting.  It was later told to the investigator that she (Assistant DA Oliver) was “concerned about winning a jury verdict in the matter.” The investigator reminded her that it was her duty to simply present the facts-clearly and accurately. She was obviously not interested in justice.   It is our opinion that the Assistant DA Ms Oliver was most concerned about wading through all the mistakes that had been made by the people sworn to protect and serve.   

In the months that have followed, we have never heard from Kristen Adams or her family.  The investigator tried numerous times without success to interview Kristen Adams to hear her side to the story. 

Our struggle to hold someone responsible continued to weigh on us.  We painfully were thrown at the mercy of Rule 9J (See tab on Home Page "NC Rule 9J) that basically allows the very people (doctors) who we are trying to hold partially responsible for this crime, decide whether a lawsuit will be filled or not against the Doctors who commit malpractice.

Events of December 2, 2005 by Matthew Johnson

Trish called me about1224am and told me Paige was in an accident; she had been hit by a car.  She didn’t have too many details.  Paige hadn’t gotten to the emergency room yet.  Paige’s friend, Maddie, called Trish while the ambulance was still there.  Trish said she would call me back when she could get more info.  Trish did say Paige was talking and had told the EMT folks that she was allergic to penicillin. 

About 130am Trish called me back and said she couldn’t wait, she was hitting the road.  I asked her if I should leave now too and we decided for me to wait, she would call the hospital on the way to find out what she could and call me back.

Around 300am Trish called me back and said the hospital would not talk to her because Paige was 18.  Trish did say that Maddie got some info from the nurse that her leg was broken.  I told Trish I was on my way.

I got to the hospital at about 7-730am.  Paige was still in the emergency room.  At this time I found out from Trish what the extent of her injuries were.   Paige was with her mother when I went into the emergency room.  Paige was awake, but resting.  She was in about an 8 pain, because the first time the nurse came in while I was there, the nurse (white woman short dirty blond/brown hair) asked Paige what her pain level was.  Paige said an 8.  She said her head and leg.  Paige’s ears were bleeding and her mom and I cleaned blood out of them on a regular basis.  Paige was complaining about the EMT folks cutting her J.Crew off, they cost $120.  Paige was also taking a few cell phone calls.  Paige was very conscious and just being Paige.  She complained about wanting a shower and washing her hair.  On a number of occasions, Paige felt very sick to her stomach and threw-up.  Paige had much of the “road” dirt on her still.  She never really got washed up.  Trish explained to me that Paige and her friends were out and Paige went to walk across the street and she was struck by a car.  Ironically Paige was given a ticket and the girl driving was not breathalyzed.   Paige was continued to complain about her head hurting and she was itching her face and body quite a bit.  We found out she was being given morphine and asked that they change that to dilaudid (not sure of the name) Paige was in surgery for her nose and tonsils/adenoids in April/August of 05.  We found that the morphine didn’t work on her.  So the emergency room folks did change the medication.  Although she was hooked up to monitors in the emergency room, no one looked at her eyes or even respond to her cries about her head hurting.  At one point the doctor (male, medium build, short crew cut grey hair, I think his name was Philip) came in to ask Paige some questions about her pain and where it was.   As I started to answer, the doctor was adamant about the fact that he was asking Paige the questions.  Paige told him her head hurt; he brought her immediately to her leg.  He left the room.  Yes, the leg was a concern because it was swelling (too) and they felt like they needed to release pressure quickly.  As it actually turns out, what they thought was happening to her leg, wasn’t at all.  To my understanding a full CAT scan was done early AM when she arrived and only showed her leg injury.    The same doctor came back into the room and told us he didn’t want to wait anymore so finally around 1400 they rolled her up to surgery, to release the pressure on her leg and to set her leg up so at a later time she could go back into surgery to have the medal rods attached to her bone to fix the 5 breaks she had.  Doctor Josiah Duke was the orthopedic surgeon that explained what he was going to do.  Paige was awake and listened to the conversations between the doctor and Trish and I.   Paige was asking how long it would take, how bad it would hurt, would she be awake.  Paige was very nervous about what was going to happen to her.  The anesthesiologist (I don’t remember his name) talked to us next about what he was going to do.  He asked us medical history questions and punched this information into his computer.  Paige kept asking about how long this was going to take.  She just wanted her hair washed.  Surgery ended around 1530 and they put Paige in recovery.   The recovery room was a big open room with curtain partitions to separate the patients.  There were quite a few people in the recovery room.  Doctor Duke met with Trish and I after he was done and told us Paige did well and she would be just fine.  We asked to see her, but the recovery room was only allowed 1 person, 5 minutes every hour.  That meant Trish got to see her for 5 minutes one hour and I got to see her 5 minutes the next hour.  Unfortunately she was in recover for almost 7 hours.  Trish bought Paige a Cosmo magazine and a brush that Paige absolutely hated, but it was that or a hair pick, so Paige could at least brush her hair.  I asked Trish if Paige would mind a stuffed animal from me.  Trish assured me that Cheer Madness (her cheerleading group) would be sending so much stuff to her.  We kept asking about a room, they kept telling us they didn’t have a room for her and had to wait for someone to be discharged.  This made Trish and me very upset.  No room for Paige meant we could not see or spend that time with her.  Our child was kept from her parents in such a time of need.  During the 15 minutes I got to spend with Paige over the next 7 hours, I didn’t notice much of what the nurses were doing, because it seemed they weren’t doing anything but standing by a table, but as I only got minutes to see my Daughter, that was what I was focused on.  Paige did keep complaining about her head still hurting and I did ask the nurse in recovery what was being done about that, she looked at her chart and said she was being given dilaudid.  Finally close to 2130 she was being moved to her own room.  I’ll never forget how much her head was hurting then…………… Her mother and I were already waiting for her outside her room.  The couple of nurses that were there moved her from her surgery bed to her room bed, which she had to be lifted out of……. She screamed in much pain about her head hurting so badly and she wanted to know why.  Paige at this point was cussing about her head hurting so badly.  The nurses/doctors just kept giving her pain medication.   In her room, she was hooked up to a BP machine.  I remember being in the emergency and recovery room and the nurses saying that she wouldn’t be going to a monitored room.  That sort of concerned me, but that kind of talk only led me to believe that the doctors thought she would be ok.   Shortly after being moved into her own room, after being settled in, I remember Paige talking about people I didn’t know.  I was standing by her bed; Trish was out in the hallway.  Paige was saying something about Melissa and someone else.  Paige’s eyes were closed but I said to her, “Paige, I’m here”, “Daddy’s here”   She was talking as if she was somewhere else.  I told the nurse (Susan or Lisa)(skinny white woman, thin blond hair, pulled back in a pony tail) and Trish what Paige was doing.  I asked Trish if she knew the names Paige spoke of.  Trish said no and we kind of chuckled, but I didn’t think anything of it as the nurse also smiled about it.  I told Trish she was hallucinating.  Trish and I decided to take a break and walk outside for a moment, as they just gave Paige more meds, she seemed very quiet and drowsy/lifeless.  As Trish and I walked out of the room, I looked at Paige and saw her right jugular hopping around like a twitching nerve.  I pointed to her jugular and mentioned to Trish, “Look at that”.  She said we should let the nurse know.  We did on the way out.

Trish and I had a long day, Paige too.  We decided that I would stay with Paige and Trish would go back to the hotel to get some sleep.  My brother Jeff called around 2230, we talked for a few moments and I told him Paige was going to be ok.  His son Paul wanted to call (Paige’s cousin) I told Jeff that Paige was taking calls as she did a few times during the day, and that Paul could call Paige tomorrow.  Every hour the nurse would come in and check the drips I guess.  I really don’t know what they were looking at.  The light was not on in the room, just a small amber night light I guess.   Paige was non-stop complaining about her head still hurting but in a very soft somber lazy tone now.  I would relay Paige’s pain to the nurse and the nurse would just talk about when she could get more pain medication or I “just gave her some”.   For some reason I thought to ask the nurse (Susan/Lisa) what pain medication she was giving Paige.  She told me morphine and I almost flipped and asked her why she was doing that.  I explained to her Paige’s history of pain medications and her surgeries and I told her what happened in the Emergency room and told her to look at her chart!   She looked at the chart and said, “I didn’t know”, she read some paperwork and must have found she was wrong and said she would change the medication.  It seems that the hospital staff didn’t talk to each other about that and it made me mad.   I’m not sure what affect all the different pain medications had on Paige, but it seems she was over medicated.  At about 0120 Paige told me (for the last time) that her head still hurt.  (“My head still hurts Dad”)  I tried to talk to her about trying to sleep that she would be fine.  The nurse came in and I told her for the last time that Paige was still complaining about her head still hurting.  She did the same thing, just look at her drip. 

At 0220-0230 the nurse came in again.  I was awake and watching the nurse each time.  This particular time she looked at the drips, called Paige’s name, she flipped the light on and said, “Paige wake up!”  She ran out of the room saying, “Oh Shit!”  I walked over to Paige and said, “Paige wake up!” 5-10 hospital staff members ran into her room, I grabbed my bag and was asked to step out of the room.  I immediately called Trish to have her come back to the hospital.   The nurse who was watching her finally walked by me and said she was sorry.  Then a doctor came to me and said, “I am doctor so and so……your daughter stopped breathing, we’ve aspirated her and we are trying to find out what happened.   One of the nurses (small black lady, short hair, glasses, told me that they were moving her to Trauma ICU North Tower C415.  I waited for Trish and we walked to this location.  Paige had not arrived yet.  A nurse was there to tell us she was not here yet.  She told us we could wait with other people that were sleeping in the waiting room.  Trish said no way, and then the lady put us in a cold room by ourselves.   Trish and I waited close to 2 hours before the doctor and nurses came in to finally talk to us.  Before this, we of course tried to ask what was going on, but got the same standard answer from everyone we asked…….The doctor will be up to talk to you soon…….During the first 30 minutes of being up there they kept telling us that she was on her way up and the doctor would be in to see us.  I actually got a call from a nurse in the hospital waiting room making sure where we were cause the doctor was on there way to come talk to us.  That didn’t happen until Doctor (Neurosurgeon on call I think, Dr. Toschlog) He proceeded to tell Trish and I (very lightly) Paige’s brain had swelled to the point of stopping her breathing.  We immediately cried and Trish said, we’ve been trying to tell the nurses and the doctors for hours that her head has been hurting and Paige’s was yelling about her head hurting ( Ironic that I remember in the emergency room, when the doctor asked her about pain, her mom and I instinctly tried to respond and the doctor was adamant about talking only to Paige and hearing what Paige had to say)  We also told Dr Toscholg how shitty it was to keep us, her parents away from Paige after surgery while she was in recovery, having that time to spend with Paige  might have changed things.  But instead we sat in the waiting room in great anguish about not being about to be with her.  The doctor listened and said he was concerned about what he was hearing and would look into it.  He told Trish and me, “I want to let you know we might be looking at a girl here who is brain dead” But he wanted to do some conclusive test.  I asked Dr Toscholg what should have been done.  He said what we are doing now, which was giving her medication to reduce the swelling of her brain (which we know now was too late at this point) and certainly another CAT scan should have been done.  We asked to see her, but it wouldn’t be for another 30 minutes or so.  When we finally got see her.  Of course now Paige was on a breathing machine and hooked up to what seemed to be every piece of equipment?  I didn’t grasp the definitive moment of what was really going on.  I spoke to Paige as if she would pull out of her tragic condition.  I squeezed her hand and talked as if she would squeeze back.  Her eyes were closed down to about a very small opening at the bottom of her eyes.  I could still see her eye very slightly.  One thing I noticed almost immediately was Paige’s forehead look very swollen and the base of her neck was black and blue.  It struck me that “now I could see” what Paige was screaming about for over 24 hours.  Trish and I stayed with her talking and crying to her until the doctor needed 30min to run those “conclusive” tests.

Trish and I were allowed back in to her room to stay with her after the tests were done.  By the time of 0530 the doctor had come in to our room to tell us he took her off her breathing machine she didn’t take a breath on her own.  Her urine and blood were tested for carbonminoxcide / carbondioxcide (im not sure which one) and it was at the level that was positive for being brain dead.  He also said that there was a total of 15 tests for be being brain dead and Paige passed them all.   If you can imagine Trish and I got very emotional, we died with our Daughter.

Time stopped for me I really wasn’t aware of what time it is now.  (The end of my life).  Trish and I talked to the NC organ donor folks.  Made some phone calls.  Kay and Roger (Grandparents) who live 2 hours away, were coming back to the hospital.  They were the first to arrive when Paige was hurt, as they live the closest.   Roger and Kay went home too, because we were all told she would be ok.  In fact, I called work prior to getting to Greenville to let them know I wouldn’t be in and what had happened to that point.  After surgery, I called work back to tell them she would be ok.  You can imagine having to make that call back to my office that something happened to Paige during the night and she didn’t make it.  Worse than that, I had to call Paige’s Sister Lauren and Brother Christopher to let them know she was in heaven. 

Paige received last rights from a Catholic Priest.  I stayed with Paige until she had to be readied for organ donation. 

At some point Dr. Duke came right up to the Trauma ICU when he heard what happened to Paige.  He was crying and offered many apologizes for telling us Paige would be ok.  I was out of the room when he arrived and talked to Trish about other details.   He did say that he also looked at the first CAT Scan that was taken when Paige first arrived to the hospital.  He said he didn’t see anything that gave him a reason to believe Paige had a head injury.  (What about all the screaming Paige was doing?)

My wife Allison, my Mom and Trish’s husband Dave, Roger and Kay (Paige’s maternal Grandparents) were able to come down to see her one last time.

Roger, Dave and I went to Paige’s dorm to gather her things.  That was hard.  Young girls were there crying and actually helping.  We all met back at the hotel Trish was in.  I told Alli I was ready to go, but I need to go try and see Paige again.  I ran across the street and back to ICU for one more visit with her. 

I got 2 calls early Sunday morning.  I don’t remember the time of the first (1230 maybe) the 2^nd call came about 0220.  The NC organ donor rep wanted to let me know that all of Paige’s organs were successfully transplanted.   He told me he thinks her heart was given to a young girl about her age.