After sustaining massive injuries in a late December bicycling accident, a University art professor remains unconscious at Duke Hospital.
Renowned artist Vernon Pratt, 59, suffered severe head and chest injuries Dec. 21 as he was riding his bicycle along a narrow stretch of road near Lynchburg, Va.
Pratt, who was on sabbatical last semester, had gone to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts to paint.
He was airlifted to the Medical Center on Dec. 28. Although Pratt has been weaned off of a ventilator, he has yet to regain consciousness and remains listed in serious condition.
"We're left with a body and a soul. But his mind is gone," said his wife, Deborah Pratt. "The longer he stays unconscious, the less of a chance he has of ever coming back."
In the weeks since the accident, police and family members have clashed over the cause of the incident. Police officers say they have found no evidence to suggest anything other than a simple fall, but the family insists that Pratt was the victim of a hit and run.
"There was really nothing to substantiate another vehicle," Virginia State Police Sgt. Mark Cannaday told The Herald-Sun of Durham. Specifically, police reportedly found no evidence of another vehicle's paint on Pratt's bike.
Deborah Pratt, however, maintains that her husband's injuries were too severe to have been caused by a fall.
Vernon Pratt, who was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, suffered damage to both the right and left hemispheres of his brain and sustained a ruptured aorta, a broken clavicle, a punctured lung, several fractured ribs and other internal injuries.
"I am 100 percent convinced [that this was a hit and run]," Deborah Pratt said. "Not 50, not 99.9-100 percent convinced." She added that she has doctors who support her theory.
She also claims that police inadequately investigated the crime scene, mishandled key pieces of evidence including Pratt's bloody clothing, and misplaced important documents. "The whole scene was bungled," she said, adding that she has consulted a lawyer and plans to pursue a lawsuit for what she considers "gross, gross negligence on a terrible, just hideous, crime."
Police representatives could not be reached Tuesday for comment on the allegations.
Deborah Pratt said her husband, who is on temporary disability leave from the University, will be transferred to a local hospice for continued care as soon as a bed opens up.
In the meantime, she has decided to go ahead with an exhibition of her husband's work he had planned for early February in Raleigh's Lee Hansley Gallery. "That's what Vernon, I think, would have wanted," she said.
Vernon Pratt, an associate professor best known for creating the massive, publicly funded Education Wall across from the Legislative Office Building in Raleigh, has been teaching at the University since 1964. He was scheduled to teach this semester; now, his classes will be covered by another professor.
Richard Powell, chair of the art and art history department and John Spencer Bassett professor of art history, said his colleagues were shocked and saddened to hear of the accident.
Still, he stressed, "We're still hoping and praying for his recovery. We're not operating in the past tense."
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