Pop Warner Honors Heroic Mother and Son
Good Deed Cost A Mother, 14-Year-Old Son Their Lives

The Associated Press
Published: Sep 29, 2004

NORTH PORT - A woman killed with one of her sons when they got out of their vehicle to help a motorcyclist after a freeway crash is being remembered as a mother who often stressed to her children the importance of being good Samaritans.

Marsha Gambill, 36, and her oldest son, Brian Gambill, 14, died Saturday on Interstate 75 in southwestern Florida when a van smashed into them and motorcyclist Brian Dess in the darkened median. Dess also died.

"I just can't believe it. She was a good, churchgoing woman who loved her sons," said Gambill's Cape Coral neighbor Tony Grande. "She was tickled pink when she moved out to the Cape three years ago and [to] have her boys going to good schools."

"She worked six days a week and long hours to be sure her boys had the things they needed." Her other son, 12-year-old Brad, was not with her at the time of the accident, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

FHP officials said Tuesday that lighting on that stretch of interstate was knocked out by Hurricane Charley.

"It would have helped, but it wouldn't have prevented it,'' FHP spokesman Doug Dodson said. "It just happened too quick."

The Gambills were returning from a Pop Warner football game in Venice on Saturday night when they stopped on Interstate 75 in North Port after Dess hit a van and was thrown into the path of Gambill's sport utility vehicle, the FHP said. Gambill, number 80, played for the Cape Youth Hurricanes Midget Team in the Peace River Pop Warner Conference.

The Gambills got out and were running to help Dess when a van driven by Bernard Broering, 65, of Bonita Springs, hit all three of them.

Dodson said it wasn't clear if Dress, 49, of Punta Gorda, was killed in the initial crash or when he was hit by the two other vehicles. Two motorcyclists who were with Dess also were running toward him when the second accident occurred and told troopers the chain of events happened in seconds, Dodson said.

No charges have been filed, Dodson said.

At Gulf Middle School in Cape Coral, which Brian Gambill attended, students wrote notes of remembrance and left them on his empty desk.

"They were being good Samaritans by stopping to help someone else, really," Principal Bill Lane said.