"The angels were with me"
Hit by a falling tree, Orange artist Megan Marlatt escaped with her life and grew closer to her family
On a July evening in Missoula, Mont., Megan Marlatt, her daughter, Bronwen Harris, and her 8-year-old grandson, Simon Harris, decided to take a walk. It had been a good day but an unusually hot one, the temperature rising to 100 degrees. Now it was dusk, and things were cooling off. As they strolled around the neighborhood where the Harris family lives, Megan could see the sky darkening in the distance but figured they had plenty of time to get home before the storm broke.
There was not plenty of time. They were headed back to the house, just a block away, when the wind suddenly became ferocious. Bronwen was walking behind Megan, and Simon was in front.
Megan, an artist, professor of art at the University of Virginia and longtime resident of Orange, recalls what happened next: “I thought, ‘Well, man, we’re gonna get drenched.’” She knew she couldn’t outrun the storm, but maybe her grandson could. “So I just said, ‘Simon, run, go run home!’”
She watched him take off. “And that’s when I heard the trees crack, and I ran—well, I walked fast ’cause I can’t run—away from the tree into the street. And then I started hearing more trees crack, and that’s when the tree fell on me. And my daughter saw it all.”
Megan’s decision to step off the sidewalk may have saved her life. But she was in terrible pain—the pain of broken bones—and trapped beneath the silver maple’s upper branches.
Just a few minutes earlier, Simon had taken a photo of his mother and grandmother, the sky behind them an opaque gray.
From Missoula, Megan writes, “It was after that photo I knew something was really wrong. I looked ahead and saw the trees bend and snap back into place, leaving a silhouette of tree dust and then it swirled up into the wind. We turned the corner and heard the trees all around just snapping. It was so incredibly loud, like how people describe tornadoes.”
Then, catastrophe. For a moment, Bronwen thought she’d lost both her mother and her son. Even now, months later, the memories nearly overwhelm her as she recounts the sequence of events: “I tried to move the branches, but they were too heavy for me alone. And then I ran to the last spot I saw my son, and that was completely covered in debris. I called out for him but heard and saw nothing.”
“Covered in leaves and blood”
“I knew my mom was alive, for I heard her call for help. I then ran to the nearest house and frantically rang the doorbell, but no one answered. And then I saw a young lady on her bike, and I flagged her down. She immediately started calling 911 but wasn’t able to get through. I went to the other side of the jumble of branches, and that’s when I saw [my mother’s] cellphone moving. She had it in her hand the whole time. I said, ‘I see you!’”
Bronwen still couldn’t lift the branches off her mother. Then a familiar car pulled up. It was Bronwen’s husband, Ryan Harris, come to drive everybody home. He had no idea what had just happened until Bronwen told him. '
“I was hoping he was going to tell me he had our son, but when I told him my mom was under the tree behind me, he asked where our son was. I whispered, ‘I don't know’ and showed him where I last saw him.”
The Harrises had two urgent tasks: rescue Megan and find Simon.
From beneath the rubble, Megan heard her son-in-law calling out her name: “He’s breaking branches to get me out of there. And I realized I can turn around and crawl out, which is what I did. But I also realized that I’ve broken something. A bicyclist had stopped—a young woman—and she and my daughter put me in the car.”
Things were a blur for Bronwen as she ran back and forth between the area where her mother was and where she’d last seen her son. But one memory stands out: “I very clearly remember my mom being able to crawl out from under the tree, her dress torn from the impact and covered in leaves and blood.”
“I flung the door open, and …”
Bronwen ran home, since she now knew her mother had told Simon to go there.
“I was just praying the whole way [Simon] made it home. The whole distance was covered in debris, including another giant branch in front of my door. I flung the door open, and he was standing there with his sister [Story Harris, age 11] putting Band-Aids on his fingers because he was so close to being smashed by branches over and over again that his hands were all scratched up.”
Simon had skirted falling trees the whole way home. At one point, the resourceful little boy took refuge on a neighbor’s porch. Many times, Megan has relived the moment she told him to run home and wondered what would have happened if she’d told him to stay close to her instead. There might have been a tragedy, but, she says, “the angels were with me that day and with him.”
Once Bronwen knew Simon was safe, she hurried back to tell her husband and mother. Ryan Harris could now take Megan to the emergency room. The streets were littered with fallen trees and debris, and the power was out all over Missoula. But the lights were on at the hospital (and, by chance, at the Harris home). With an ankle broken in multiple places, a fractured shoulder blade, a black eye and many cuts, bruises and scrapes, Megan was in a lot of pain. The hospital lights were a beacon on the dark road.
Once she arrived at the ER, a healthcare worker pulled leaves and sticks out of her cuts and gave her black eye a thorough cleaning. She had a CAT scan in the middle of the night to check for internal bleeding and damage to her head (all clear). The hospital was unusually busy due to the storm, and it would be 24 hours before she had the ankle surgery she badly needed. When she left the hospital, she was wearing a protective boot and unable to put weight on her injured leg. Her visit with her daughter and family was supposed to last four days. Instead, she stayed four weeks.
“Oh, my God, what?”
As soon as she could, Bronwen had called Megan’s husband, the photographer and filmmaker Richard Knox Robinson. It was after 11 p.m. in Orange—two hours later than in Missoula—and Robinson was in bed, about to fall asleep, when he heard the phone ringing. It was the landline, a phone he and his wife rarely use, and he figured it was a wrong number. But when the ringing started up a second time, he answered. At first, he was unsure who was calling because Bronwen’s voice was so full of emotion.
As Bronwen poured out the story, Richard struggled to make sense of it all: “It was like, ‘Oh my God, what?’ And it took a while to figure it out. Then Bronwen texted me every couple minutes throughout the whole night, and I started figuring out how I was going to get out there.”
His flight to Missoula involved two connections. As he embarked on the long trip, he told himself, “I can’t be emotional now. I’ve gotta be functional.” Still, at one point, he broke down and cried. “It was awkward, but it was just too much pressure.”
Finally, he arrived at Megan’s hospital room. “When I first saw her, she was all banged up. She had a big black eye. And then she smiled, and I was like, ahhhh. It just melted me.”
“Now we’re a real strong family unit of six”
In a welcome development, the two couples grew closer after Megan’s accident. Bronwen says, “That event brought our families together. We had grown apart over the years, and it was hard to find our footing to see where each of us was coming from. And as a result, we drifted apart. That storm made us realize how much we meant to each other.”
She and her mother “had a bunch of hard conversations and heartwarming moments” while Megan was in the ER. Megan’s survival of the accident “brought not only me and her together but our spouses as well, and now we’re a real strong family unit of six,” Bronwen says.
Once Megan was discharged from the hospital, everybody in the family pitched in to help her, including the grandchildren. After five days, Richard needed to return to Orange and take care of things there. Megan remained behind, unable to travel. She navigated from room to room on her knee scooter, occasionally beeped her hamburger-shaped horn (a gift from Bronwen) and figured out how to get past Barko, the large, deaf and nearly blind family dog, often blocking the way to the bathroom.
To keep her mother from slipping into a depression, Bronwen made a point of taking her on excursions and encouraging her to sit outside. Bronwen herself still felt the trauma of the accident as she relived it again and again. “I was in shock—like true, surreal shock—for days,” she says. But mother and daughter were growing closer the whole time. Weeks later, after Megan went home, Bronwen keenly felt her absence. “I was sad. It was really empty around the house.”
Hopeful expectations and the mystery of “the divine plan”
Once she got back to her home on Chapman Street, Megan faced new challenges. One of the biggest: the stairs leading to the main living quarters on the second floor. At first, she had to sit down and painstakingly shift herself from one step to the next, with Richard’s help.
When I visited the couple in late August, I asked Megan whether she expected to recover fully from her injuries. “I expect to,” she said. “Whether that’s in the divine plan or not is another story.”
Her expectations and the divine plan seem to have dovetailed. After her ankle boot was removed, she worked with a physical therapist, who helped her make the transition from her knee scooter to a cane. She can now walk mostly without the cane.
Earlier this fall, her paintings were in an exhibition at The Painting Center in New York City, and she traveled there for the opening reception. Friends took photos of her in front of her paintings. In one picture, she’s leaning on her colorfully decorated cane, smiling, looking ahead. She may not be running into her future, but she’s able to walk there, steadily, with her family and friends cheering her on.
State Police dash-cam video: Keith Marshall hints he might want to offer trooper a job “after this is all over”
In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Byrd Street, the Virginia State Police released the dash-camera video of the August 19, 2024, arrest of Supervisor Keith Marshall (District 3), a Unionville dairy farmer. The video became available after the completion of Marshall’s case on November 20, 2024. As previously reported, the assault and battery charge against Marshall was dropped because Marshall and the plaintiff worked things out on their own, and the special prosecutor who handled the case did not pursue the charge of public intoxication.
The entire dash-camera video runs more than an hour and 20 minutes. In the first excerpt below, a state trooper confers with his sergeant and then arrests Marshall and walks him to the patrol car. (Marshall was read his legal rights earlier.) In the second excerpt, Marshall chats with the trooper driving him to Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange. He tells the trooper that “after this is all over,” he’d like to stay in touch and hints that he might want to offer the trooper a job on the Marshall dairy farm.
Heads up: The following videos contain foul language.
In contrast to the Virginia State Police, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office refused to comply with Byrd Street’s FOIA request. I requested the body-camera videos recorded when Orange County deputies responded to the 911 call at the Marshall property. (The county turned over the case to the State Police once it was determined that Marshall, a county supervisor, was involved.) In reply, Major Michael LaCasse emailed me, “The requested records are being entirely withheld. The records consist of 4 body camera videos. We are withholding the records pursuant to VA Code 2.2-3706.1 (D).”
Gordonsville gets the Christmas season off to a brrr … bright start
Several hundred people showed up at Gordonsville Town Hall on Sunday night for the memorial Christmas tree ceremony. Mayor Bob Coiner read the names of the departed being remembered during the cherished community gathering. He decided to forgo the actual lighting of the tree by local Boy Scouts, however, due to the cold and windy weather.
We don’t yet have the snow that turns downtown Gville into a living Christmas card, but Main Street doesn’t need snow to be beautiful. The aroma of hot chocolate filled the cold air as Mayor Coiner led the crowd in singing “Silent Night.”
Fighting Hornets sting Madison, 50-37
The Orange County High School boys’ basketball team chalked up a solid victory, 50-37, over Madison on December 3. OCHS player Naujehr Brown was player of the game with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Byrd Street’s OCHS sports photographer Dillon Mills captured highlights of the home game in the photos below.
For the OCHS 2024-25 sports schedule, click here.
School Board expected to vote Monday night on CTE plans
The Orange County School Board meets at 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 9, at the Taylor Education Administration Complex. The main item of interest on the agenda: an anticipated vote on plans for a Career Technical Education (CTE) building. If you want to speak during public comment, sign up in advance with School Board Clerk Laura Byram, at lbyram@ocss-va.org or (540) 661-4550.
Upcoming Christmas/holiday events
Christmas Holiday Market, OC Fairgrounds, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 7
Holiday Bazaar, Orange Baptist Church, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 7
Christkindlmarkt (with vendors, crafters and artisans), Lake of the Woods Community Center, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 7
Four County Players Holiday Bazaar, Barboursville Community Park, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 7
Orange Rotary Christmas Parade and Memorial Tree, 4:30 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 7
Orange Community Chorus Christmas Concert, free admission, Orange Presbyterian Church, 7:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 13
Holiday Village with Santa, Train Station, 122 E. Main St., Orange, 12-4 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 14
40th annual Singing Christmas Tree, Orange Baptist Church, 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 14, and Sunday, Dec. 15
Orange Community Band Christmas Concert, free admission, Orange County High School, 3:30 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 15
Winter Concert, Orange County High School Music Department (all are invited to donate non-perishable food items for Orange food pantry), 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 17
“Messiah” Singalong (Part 1), St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Orange, conducted by the Rev. Alan Miller, 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 17
BRAVO Christmas Concert, The Music Room, Orange, 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 19
For inclusion in Byrd Street, send your event listings to hwholladay@gmail.com.
Obituaries
David Lewis Laylin, 87, Orange; Jonah Earle Frye, 38, Rhoadesville; Lorene Frances Hickman, 90, Orange; Lillian Esther Casar Bowman, 86, Orange; Bill Angelo, 81, Locust Grove.
Oh my gosh! That is an amazing story and written so well. Here we are in little Orange and I never knew this had happened to Megan, someone I have known for many years. So glad there was a very positive and hearfelt conclusion... so happy all is well and perhaps even stronger for this family! Those family connections are what makes life worth living!!
I knew there was a happy ending, but not the dramatic detail that preceded it. Thank you,Hilary, for the “felt like I was there” experience. And to Megan, Richard and Giotto, what a joy to see your smiling faces. Well, Megan and Richard’s smiling faces anyway. I’m sure Giotto was smiling inside.