Eric Dergara in the news.

Brevard family’s Guardian Angel is living example of hope and healing
By Robert C. Gabordi
Executive Editor Asheville Citizen-Times
published: May 29, 2005 6:00 am

Walking from the door at Thoms Rehab Hospital to his car, Eric DerGarabedian would confront his own agony. “It was hard,” he said. “I don’t know if I just had a game face on or what, but that’s when I would feel it.” As Eric was telling me this part of his story, he clenched his arms to his stomach, as if he was once again reliving the memory of his own accident some 19 years earlier. That’s when he stops talking, and his arms suddenly relax. He smiles and says, “I’m all about being positive.”
For the last few months, Eric had gone to Thoms nearly every day to visit Brittany Hollingsworth, a 19-year-old from Brevard whom Eric barely knew. She had been badly injured in a car accident Jan. 22 coming home from her sister’s volleyball tournament. She suffered a traumatic brain injury. Police on the scene thought she was dead. But after five weeks in a coma at Chapel Hill Trauma Center, Brittany was transferred by ambulance to Thoms. On his lunch break, after work, even on the weekends, Eric would hold Brittany’s hand, help feed her, talk to her, doing anything he could to let her - and her parents - know she would get better. After all, Eric had.
“I knew what it was like for my mom. I knew her parents needed some help,” Eric said. Then on May 17, Brittany did something really special: She went home.
“The trees and posts alongside Main Street, Brevard, were decorated with colorful balloons,” said Mary Read, Brittany’s grandmother, in a letter to the newspaper. A big sign on her Main Street home said, “Welcome home, Brittany.” In 1986, Eric was a sophomore at Kennesaw State University, working out with the soccer team. The night before his 20th birthday, Eric and a few of his friends went out to celebrate.
“It was my birthday; I got to ride shotgun,” he said. In front of his mom’s house, the vehicle he was riding in was struck from behind. Eric’s seat belt snapped off. He knows too many of the awful details of that accident. He was badly hurt; a piece of metal shattered his skull bone. He was in a coma. “At the scene, they thought I was gone or going,” he said. because of that, he was taken to a nontrauma hospital to die. His mother, Ann DerGara, a Brevard artist would have none of that. She demanded he be transferred to a trauma center. Again, at the insistence of his mother, he would quickly have surgery. She was told he would, at best, spend the rest of his life in a vegetative state. They were so wrong. His recovery would be long and hard, and in fact, is still occurring, if not just physically. Ann Hollingsworth, Brittany’s mother and owner of Main Street Limited in Brevard, said what Eric did for her family was amazing. “He did so much for us - every day,” she said. “He was dealing with everything.”
Eric faced relearning how to write, walk and eat with utensils. A lot changed in his life. He began cycling again and used that passion to rebuild cognitive and physical skills. He still keeps sticky-pad notes reminding himself of little things he might otherwise forget because of short-term memory loss.
He is now married and a professional artist working as Eric Dergara, and a graphic artist working in the Asheville Citizen-Times’ advertising department. Until the letter arrived from Mary Read describing what Eric had done for her family, few of us at work knew much of this about him. “I work at that,” he said with a smile.
Mary Read calls Eric Brittany’s Guardian Angel. Although he had been into Ann Hollingsworth’s store, he had never really met the family before he called to offer his help and encouragement. “You know, I knew them enough to wave and say hi.”
But when he heard about Brittany, he called to offer help, mainly to let the family know there was hope “after what seemed like a hopeless situation of a nightmare,” Mary Read said. Brittany’s injury is similar to that suffered by Eric in some ways, but not exactly. Eric said now that Brittany is home, she will have a lot of work to do, but her recovery will happen. She is athletic, and that will help in the recovery, he said. “Every day is like a million miles in the healing process,” he said.
There is much more to Eric’s story, as Mary Read said in her letter: “Perhaps one day this story could be printed in hopes of giving some other families who have experienced this horror some encouragement, and better yet, send them a Guardian Angel like Eric. If you meet him, give him a hug or a pat on the back.”
Robert C. Gabordi is executive editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times. He can be reached at bgabordi@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.