Relatives Agree With Crash Victim’s Transfusion Refusal

Relatives of a teen-age Jehovah’s Witness who died after a traffic collision with a freight train in Hawthorne said they support the girl’s decision in refusing a transfusion that might have saved her.

Patricia Knight, 19, of Inglewood died Saturday at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center after she told doctors not to give her transfusions so they could operate to repair several broken ribs and internal injuries, the girl’s relatives said this week.

“We all take our stand,” said Gloria Stowers, Knight’s aunt and guardian. “We know what God’s laws require. She had faith in the standard God sent out in regard to blood.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that passages in the Old Testament and New Testament prohibit the ingestion of blood.

Medical center officials and the doctor who treated Knight declined Wednesday to comment. An autopsy, scheduled for today, may show whether Knight’s injuries would have been fatal even with a transfusion, said Bob Dambacher, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Stowers and other relatives say that Knight’s rejection of a transfusion is less troubling to them than the official account of the 10:30 p.m. railway crossing accident, which fatally injured the teen-ager and killed her cousin, Demonte Stowers.

The official account of the accident is based on statements from a Southern Pacific railroad conductor, who provided the only eyewitness account to the California Highway Patrol, said CHP spokesman Richard Richards. If the engineer was interviewed, his statements were not in the accident report, he said.

Relatives know that Knight had just finished getting her hair done Friday night when she agreed to drive Demonte Stowers, 20, to his home in Carson.

Knight was at the wheel of a new Chevrolet Spectrum and Stowers was in the passenger seat as the two rode south on Van Ness Avenue in a heavy rain, said Richards.

The car crossed 120th Street traveling at 50 to 55 m.p.h., according to the conductor, as it approached an ungated Southern Pacific railroad crossing, Richards said.

“For unknown reasons” Knight failed to heed flashing warning signals and attempted to cross the tracks in front of an eastbound railroad engine towing 22 cars behind it, said Richards and Southern Pacific spokesman Andy Anderson.

The train was going 15 m.p.h.--less than the 20-m.p.h. speed limit--when it broadsided Knight’s car on the passenger side, they said.

Stowers died at the scene of massive head injuries. Knight suffered a broken pelvis, broken ribs and cuts.

“The reports make it sound like she was really in the wrong and that she could see the train and that she didn’t stop,” said Fred Stowers, cousin to Patricia and Demonte. “I refuse to believe that she was trying to outrun the train.”

Relatives said Knight drove carefully and always wore a seat belt.

Knight had graduated from Morningside High School in Inglewood. She lived with Gloria Stowers in Inglewood, where she had worked for the last year in a shoe store. She did not drink or take drugs, Stowers said.

Demonte Stowers was a construction worker who had helped dig the Metro Rail tunnels in downtown Los Angeles, along with his father and brother, Fred Stowers said.

“Everything is so wide open right now,” Fred Stowers said. “The bits and pieces we have conjured up are not enough to satisfy us and let us know what actually happened.”

Relatives said Knight carried a card in her wallet that stated she should not receive blood transfusions under any circumstances. Knight was conscious after the accident and told her doctors not to treat her with someone else’s blood, relatives said they were told.

“It’s part of our church,” Gloria Stowers said. “In order to be obedient to almighty God, to gain eternal life, we have to remain obedient to him in everything. She realized that.”