Victim’s family faces uncertainty

Thursday, Dec. 23, 1999 | 12:52 p.m.

Trust fund

Upper Valley Directional Drilling has set up a trust fund for Melinda and Brooke Rice. Contributions may be sent to First Security Bank, 1710 S. Redwood Road, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. Donations should be marked to the "attention of Jillyn Kristensen for Brooke Rice in care of Melinda Rice."

As Brandon Rice was leaving his Clearfield, Utah, home for a two-month construction job in Las Vegas, he kissed his wife, Melinda, goodbye.

The 28-year-old man wasn't gone five minutes when he returned just to give his 26-year-old spouse of six years another goodbye kiss.

Both of them felt a little awkward, after all he wasn't going overseas -- just a few hundred miles to Las Vegas. Also, they had planned to get together in just a few days for a brief visit. But both of them had trepidations about this trip.

That Sunday night and again on Monday, Melinda, a teacher at Roy High School, dreamed that her husband was killed in an accident. She called him Monday night and was relieved just to hear his voice.

"Of course I am OK," Brandon said. "Everything is fine. I'm just watching TV. I look forward to seeing you Friday. I love you."

The next day, at noon, while working on the Las Vegas Beltway at Centennial Parkway and U.S. 95, Brandon Paul Rice was killed when a several-ton concrete box culvert storm drainage pipe fell on him as he was shifting sand beneath it.

That afternoon, Melinda was called to the principal's office, where the owner of Upper Valley Directional Drilling, the company where her husband had worked for five years, was waiting for her with the horrifying news.

"I had the dream!" Melinda screamed, "No! I had the dream!"

When Brandon was killed on Dec. 14 he left a wife who is going blind from a degenerative retina condition and a 3-year-old daughter, Brooke Lynn, who was born with Nail Patella Syndrome -- the absence of fingernails and kneecaps -- and one day may require a kidney transplant to survive to adulthood.

On Wednesday, a week and a day after her husband was killed, Melinda, the Roy High girls cross-country coach who has been training to run in the Las Vegas Half-Marathon in February, rolled out of bed, got dressed and put in a five-mile run.

Later that morning she went Christmas shopping because, as she put it, "I feel that I must make this Christmas a normal and happy one for Brooke. I know he (Brandon) would want it that way."

Melinda did not jog or shop alone that day. She felt Brandon, who had asthma when he was alive and could not join her on long runs, jogging alongside her every step of the way.

"People I passed must have thought I was crazy talking to someone they could not see -- but I know he was there, I felt him at my side," Melinda said.

"We didn't talk about anything special. I told him that I didn't think I could pick up the pace because I have not eaten much lately and I just didn't have the strength."

Since Brandon's death, Melinda and Brooke have been staying with Brandon's parents, Paul and Pat Rice of Roy, Utah. Melinda has not gone back to the house in Clearfield, near Ogden, that the couple had built two years ago and planned to grow old in together.

After Melinda received the news of Brandon's death, she took on the unenviable task of informing Pat of the tragedy. After all, they had been good friends since Pat fixed her up with Brandon several years earlier.

The funeral was a beautiful affair, Melinda said, although she admitted she saw most of it through tears. More than 700 people came to pay respect to a man who was highly regarded on his job and in his community.

Now Melinda faces uncertainty for a new millennium both health-wise and financially.

Two operations to correct her hystoplasmosis have failed, leaving her totally blind in one eye. Doctors say it is possible that she will lose sight in the other within five years.

"I strongly believe I will not lose my sight until Brooke is old enough to care for herself," Melinda said. "I'm a very religious person and a very positive person."

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Melinda long ago was taught to believe that God does not give man anything with which he cannot deal.

Few would argue, however, that the amount of pain heaped on the Rice family is far more than anyone's fair share.

Take Brooke for instance. In addition to lacking fingernails and kneecaps, she has only 50 percent mobility in her elbows. When she falls, she lands flat on her face because her arms cannot extend to break her fall.

Also, doctors early on told Brandon and Melinda that Brooke was brain damaged and would never walk or talk.

Today, in a manner that defies medical science, Brooke walks. She also talks at the level of a 5-year-old and even answers the telephone and talks with callers.

But her kidney condition has not gone away and one day it will have to be addressed by an expensive operation, maybe even a life-saving transplant.

"Even with all of her problems, Brooke has a delightful, sunny disposition," said Melinda's aunt, Marilyn Johnson, of Salinas, Calif. "Her outgoing personality makes her a happy, active girl."

However, Johnson, like other family and friends, wonders how Melinda and Brooke are going to make it without Brandon.

"Melinda would very much like to stay in her home, but her salary as a schoolteacher is insufficient to meet the payments," Johnson said.

The insurance money she will receive barely covers one year of her late husband's salary. Melinda and Brooke are awaiting word as to what they will receive from Social Security, but Melinda knows it won't be enough to maintain their current lifestyle.

"He used to always tell me, 'go ahead and buy that if you want it, we have plenty of money,' " Melinda said. "That was true. His salary paid for everything and mine was just money to play with. Now my salary will have to pay the bills. A good thing I have always been a frugal shopper.

"We didn't have a lot of insurance because we are young and when you are young you just don't think about dying."

But Melinda is quick to add that she has never had to ask for charity, that she has a small amount of savings that will be used to pay the mortgage for a few months and that she still has her job. In short, Melinda and Brooke are not destitute.

Also, Upper Valley Directional Drilling has helped with some of Melinda's immediate needs. The company paid Brandon's funeral expenses.

But with expensive health care needs on the horizon for both her and her daughter, Melinda has every reason to be concerned about the long-term welfare of her family.

Gone forever are the happy days Brandon and Melinda would holiday in Las Vegas. Brandon, an amateur artist, and Melinda enjoyed visiting the Bellagio to view the paintings by famous artists and the Venetian to marvel at the sculptures.

"I've always loved Las Vegas," Melinda said. "My best friend lives there and we used to visit there a lot. But, I have to admit that right now I'm a little scared to go there.

"I have such wonderful memories of Las Vegas. I want to remember those good times. I know that I am not ready right now to go to the site where he died. I don't know if I ever will be ready for that."

Melinda refuses to think of the future beyond her day-to-day activities.

"I have to concentrate right now just to brush my hair," she said with a slight laugh.

Right now Melinda says she believes she never will marry again.

"My plans now are to enjoy Christmas with my family," she said. "After Christmas, Brooke and I will return to our house and go on with our lives."

And it is not too difficult to imagine that Brandon's enduring spirit will be waiting at the front door with hello kisses for Melinda and Brooke.

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