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Local Hospital Worker Dies In Pickup Truck Accident

November 8, 2005

According to police, Thomas K. Robinson's pickup truck collided with Lori L. Allen's Toyota Camry on State Road 60 near Plant City. Florida Highway Patrol troopers say Robinson, 43, was intoxicated when he lost control of his 1999 Chevrolet at 8 p.m. Allen, 45, died nearly two hours later at Tampa General Hospital.

Thomas K. Robinson is an unemployed welder displaced by Hurricane Katrina, a man struggling to get himself and his wife a home better than the Motel 6 room they have been sharing with four dogs. Lori L. Allen was a former St. Joseph's Hospital security coordinator who fell on hard financial times a few years back and was sharing a modest Temple Terrace apartment with a roommate.

The crash happened near the Polk County line. Robinson was driving east on State Road 60, returning to the motel from his brother's Plant City home, when he lost control of his truck and crossed the grass median into oncoming traffic. His wife was in the passenger seat. The truck hit the front of Allen's car, according to a Highway Patrol report. Her roommate, 54-year-old Margaret Villanueva, was in the passenger seat.

The impact sent Robinson's truck spinning, and it also hit the back of a westbound 1999 Chevrolet Corvette driven by 50-year-old Rudy E. Strickland of Plant City, according to the report. Strickland was not injured, and Kimberly Robinson suffered minor cuts and bruises that were treated at the scene. Villanueva was taken to TGH, where she remained Thursday in good condition, according to hospital spokesman John Dunn.

Troopers conducted a field sobriety test at the crash scene and arrested Robinson. He was treated for minor injuries at TGH, then taken to the jail, where he took a Breathalyzer test that put his blood alcohol level at 0.098 percent, Coggins said. Robinson is being held without bail in the Orient Road Jail, charged with seven felony and misdemeanor crimes, including vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter. 'I'd rather be in New Orleans waiting in an attic than be here going through this,' said his wife, Kimberly Robinson, crying as she stood outside their motel room Thursday morning. 'We already fled down here, and now this. This is rock bottom.'

Under Florida law, a driver with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent or higher is presumed impaired. Robinson was booked on charges of vehicular homicide, DUI manslaughter, driving under the influence, driving under the influence in a crash that caused property damage, and reckless driving involving serious injury. If convicted of the vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter charges, second-degree felonies, Robinson can get up to 15 years in prison for each.

'My heart goes out to those people,' Robinson's wife said of Allen and Villanueva. But she also worries about her husband. 'He wouldn't want to hurt anyone,' she said. 'This will just kill him.' She met Robinson in December 1994. Robinson, a Kentucky native, was living in Hillsborough County, where his grandparents lived. They started dating and, in 2003, they married. By then they had moved to Westwego, La., just outside New Orleans, Robinson said. She drove 18-wheelers and he worked as a welder at Bollinger Shipyards, she said. In June, he got word of a job in Hillsborough. So they moved out of a rental home, put their stuff in storage and drove to Tampa. The job fell through, and Thomas Robinson took temporary day labor jobs while looking for something more steady.

When Hurricane Katrina barreled through Louisiana, it flooded their storage unit, Kimberly Robinson said. With news of residents returning to New Orleans, the Robinsons agreed it was time for them to go back. They drove to the Plant City home of Robinson's brother, who had agreed to lend them cash to pay the motel bill. Robinson said her husband, who weighs 190 pounds, drank no more than two beers before they left his brother's house.

Allen, formerly a resident of Nebraska and Virginia, lived at the Laurel Oaks Apartment Homes in Temple Terrace. Until February 2003, she worked as the security coordinator for St. Joseph's Hospital, said hospital spokesman Will Darnall. Little could be learned about Allen, except for scant details gleaned from public records. Attempts to find relatives were unsuccessful. No one answered the door at her apartment, where a dog barked inside. An upstairs neighbor said Villanueva and Allen shared the apartment and speculated that the women were returning home from visiting a friend in Plant City. Villanueva was recovering at TGH Thursday and could not be reached.