On the shortest, darkest day of 2021, a rainy December evening, Dennis Phillips lost his wife, Gayle, who was struck and killed in the crosswalk at Northeast Fremont and 44th Avenue.
On April 28, Phillips will also lose his driving “privileges.” The state is revoking Phillips’ license because he no longer has peripheral vision on his right side, just one of the extensive injuries he suffered when a woman driving a Honda CRV plowed into him and his wife.
Phillips understands why his ophthalmologist felt compelled to inform the Department of Motor Vehicles of his vision loss. He is also deeply frustrated he will no longer be able to drive his Subaru Outback to the trail heads and Mt. Hood campsites he loves.
And at 73, he could be forgiven for shutting down, hoisting the white flag and – like so many Portlanders – surrendering to tragedy and change.
Fortunately, Phillips is made of sterner stuff. His lost his wife, not his discipline or his resourcefulness. “I don’t want to just lie down,” he says. “That’s the engineer in me.”
Dennis and Gayle Phillips were plotting their 50th wedding anniversary on that December night in 2021 when they ventured up to Northeast Fremont. “We bought Christmas ornaments for our kids,” Phillips says. “Then we walked across the street to the tavern (McPeet’s), bought a sandwich, a couple beers. Then we walked back across the street and got hit.”
A year after Gayle Phillips’ death, the city finally set white “candlesticks” at the edge of the crosswalk where she was struck and killed in December 2021
No flashing lights, and precious little street light, illuminate that crosswalk. The couple’s clothing was dark. In a video captured by the camera at Beaumont Hardware, you can see Dennis Phillips edge between parked cars into the north end of the crosswalk, waiting for eastbound cars to stop. Just as Gayle arrives at his side, they are struck by the westbound Honda.
Its driver, a 76-year-old Vancouver woman, clearly never saw them.
As you might imagine, Gayle Phillips’ death intensified the neighborhood’s campaign to improve safety conditions along Fremont. Sixteen months later, there is still woeful lighting at the intersection but, on the eve of a vigil for Gayle last December, the Bureau of Transportation finally installed white plastic “candlesticks” to prevent parked cars from obscuring the crosswalk.
“They weren’t going to get to it for a while,” says Patty Nelson, president of the Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Association. “When we reminded them we were going to do the (vigil), they went in. It’s sad that it takes a tragedy.”
In the Portland Police Bureau report of that tragedy, Officer David Enz notes that a fellow officer at the scene “told me Dennis Phillips had suffered a traumatic brain injury and was not expected to survive.”
During his month-long stay at Legacy Emanuel, Phillips bested those expectations.
“He downplays how intense his hospital experience really was,” his son, Paul, says. “He was barely able to move any of his limbs. It was months before he was cognitively able to take on a serious conversation. A lot of the doctors said this is common with head trauma.”
Worse, Phillips was bumping up against the sharp ridge of despair, even contemplating suicide. “I called almost 60 mental-health professionals in the Portland area, and no one was able to help us,” Paul Phillips says. “At best, they would call back and say they weren’t available, and even that would take two weeks.
“Part of that contributed to him being so aggressive in building his own recovery team. He took it into his own hands.”
Phillips worked for the Bonneville Power Administration for 28 years. “When I walked out of the hospital,” he says, “I couldn’t find a psychologist. But I’m an engineer. I had to engineer a solution. I need to be a normal human being, someone fighting for life, not accepting what came their way. I have disabled vision; I’m not a disabled person.”
He was helped, he admits, by a hefty settlement from the insurance companies: “Money has allowed me to do things I wouldn’t have dreamed of.” Phillips has hired an athletic trainer and a masseuse. He has given huge gifts to his two adopted children, Paul and Lida, and told Paul that he’ll pay to send him through flight school.
Desperate for companionship, he also called a dating service. For the princely sum of $8,000, Portland Singles told Phillips it would set him up on eight dates over a 12-month period.
“Eight thousand. Eight women. It sure beats hanging out at a bar,” Phillips says. “They’ve sent five so far. I’ve gotten along with four of them.” He ponders that math for a moment, then shrugs. “Any woman who will go out with me gets my respect.”
One thing more: Phillips has written to Elon Musk and camped out at the Tesla dealership on Southwest Macadam, begging them to speed up production on those self-driving cars. The kind that doesn’t rely on your peripheral vision. The kind that senses trouble ahead in the dark and the rain.
“The only car in the world that would have saved my wife and me from the accident,” Phillips says. The only car in the world, he reasons, that might persuade Oregon DMV to cut him a break.
His son admires the resilience. “He’s kind of lost, which is understandable,” Paul says. “He’s also very determined. I’d like to see him live some more life worth living.”
What does he make of his father’s dating-service splurges and letters to Elon? “To be completely honest,” Paul says, “I don’t have it all figured out.”
Nor have I. But I’m not an engineer.
— Steve Duin
