Mom, son killed trying to help called 'heroes'

It had been almost two hours since John Clark's wife, Kristi, had said she was taking her young son on a quick run to the grocery store Monday night.

The husband was at their Franklin home, giving their 4-year-old daughter a bedtime bath after the family had spent the snow day sledding.

At about 10:15, he drove the route he thought his wife might have taken to the market. When he didn't find her, he called the Franklin Police Department. They told him to head to Williamson Medical Center.

"I'm an attorney, so when you hear that phrase — you hear that dispatch won't tell you what's going on — you know something bad's up," he said.

Kristi Clark and her son, 10-year-old Carter Oakley, had rushed to the aid of passengers in an SUV that had rolled over in front of them on Interstate 65, not far from their home. Both were struck and killed by a passing tractor trailer.

"Kristi and her son, Carter, are heroes," Franklin Police Chief Deborah Faulkner said later in a statement.

Officials say that the SUV was heading south on the interstate when it hit a patch of black ice and flipped just after 9 p.m.

When Kristi Clark, 34, saw the wreck, she stopped along the icy roadway to help, bringing her son with her, police said. That's when they were hit.

Carter, a fourth grader at Oak View Elementary School, was pronounced dead at the scene. His mother died a short time later at the hospital.

Two of the five people in the SUV were taken to the hospital with critical injuries and are now in stable condition, according to Franklin police.

Franklin police spokesman Sgt. Charles Warner wrote in an email that while the crash is "still very much under investigation, this appears to have been a terribly tragic accident."

Williamson County Schools spokeswoman Carol Birdsong said that support would be on-hand for students and staff once school is back in session. The system is closed at least through Wednesday because of the winter storm.

On Tuesday, John Clark and other members of Kristi Clark's big, tight-knit family remembered her as a smart, strong-willed woman who was deeply devoted to her kids.

Carter, meanwhile, was mature for his years, family members said, and respectful. He loved sports — easily juggling football, baseball, basketball and soccer.

"He played anything and everything," John Clark said.

John Clark said that just hours before the crash, he'd gotten an email that Carter, who plays in the Franklin Baseball Club, had been picked for the youth baseball league majors.

Carter and his mom, family members said, were inseparable.

In family photos, the young mother hugs her son, his shaggy brown fringe almost covering his eyes. Like any kid posing for a picture, he looks ready to squirm away — but he's smiling, too.

That Kristi Clark would take up the role of good Samaritan was unsurprising, her husband said.

"She was the most independent person I've ever met — the most frustrating, opinionated, quick-witted, quick-tempered person," he said. "And it does not surprise me in the slightest that she was helping someone when she died."

He said his wife, who worked at Alfa Insurance in Brentwood, was a "big kid at heart."

She loved playing in the snow as much as her children did and celebrated her 34th birthday by skydiving, he said.

But when it came down to it, Kristi Clark was serious about raising Carter and 4-year-old Adelyn Clark,her husband said, and she was passionate about helping others.

"Her two biggest wishes were to be a mother and (an organ) donor," John Clark said. "Whoever gets a part of her is damn lucky — I had a part of her for just a few years, and I'm just absolutely lucky."

He said he hadn't yet been told whether she was able to successfully donate.

Helping others first

The family has lived in Franklin for about five years, he said.

Kristi Clark was one of five siblings and three step-siblings who grew up in Michigan. In 1994, the family moved to Middle Tennessee, where her father, Brad Lewis, worked at the Saturn plant.

Lewis, a Centerville resident, said that he and his daughter would duke it out over politics, mostly, and she'd almost always win — if only by sheer force of will.

"I'd just give and bow down," he said, his voice breaking.

That determination translated into a desire to help others first, he said.

"If she saw an accident, she's not going to run from it," Lewis said. "That's Kristi."

Chelsea Mattocks, of Dickson, said that she and her sister were close: The two worked together and got their kids together for the holidays.

But beyond that, Mattocks, 32, said that her sister, just two years her senior, had served as a kind of mother figure growing up. Ultimately, though, she said, "her kids meant the most to her."

Kristi Clark's stepmother Bonnie Lewis said that she was "the one that her sisters and brothers looked up to."

"She was the backbone," she said.

Reach Jill Cowan at 615-664-2150 or on Twitter @jillcowan