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ASHEBORO - Just two weeks out of the hospital, Tina Byrd watched the baptism of the sheriff's deputy who had responded to the car crash in October that claimed her legs.

Strangers still, Byrd was drawn to Randolph County Sheriff's Deputy George Morris' immersion in the baptismal pool at the livestock arena-turned-sanctuary for the Triad Cowboy Church, just a turn from where she nearly bled to death off U.S. 311.

"From what I've understood from people, he had been contemplating it when he saw the strength I had in the Lord," Byrd said.

Morris, who did not know she would be there, was no stranger to horrific accident sites.

"I know it sounds bad ... but what happened to her helped bring me closer to God," he said. "I'm looking at her and she's got her faith and she's believing in God, and she still had the spirit to not say, 'why me?'"

Byrd wasn't the only one to be changed that night - it was in the deputy finding Christ, the children learning to take care of the mother who doted on them, strangers uniting for the good of someone other than themselves. But change for Byrd, 35, comes with the challenges of finding enough money to finish replacing carpeting with linoleum for easier wheelchair access and going through another surgery to remove more bone for a proper-fitting prosthesis.

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Byrd was among the parents riding in the Forest Park Baptist Church van with the youth group, which was returning from a Christian music festival at Carowinds after 11 p.m. Oct. 4. A car driven at a low speed by a teenager near U.S. 311 and Cedar Square Road hit the van.

After the accident Byrd and the church's youth minister, among other adults, got out of the van to check on the screams coming from the other vehicle. As Byrd was comforting a young girl in the front passenger seat, another car entered the intersection, crushing Byrd between the two vehicles. The impact tossed her upper body onto the side of the roadway some 15 feet away.

"It's remarkable that she even made it to us," said Carroll, also an assistant professor in the department of orthopedic trauma at Wake Forest University.

"If it weren't for people around her thinking quickly," Carroll said, "she could have easily bled to death."

The church's new youth pastor used another man's long-sleeved shirt to tie a tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

By the time the medical helicopter arrived, Byrd had lost 40 percent of her blood.

The news got better.

"All of the trauma, all of the energy from her accident, was focused on her lower extremeties," Carroll said. "It's really amazing, actually."

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Byrd, who had worked in human resources at Klaussner Furniture, and her husband, Jason, who had recently lost his job as a finance manager, are raising Taylor, 15, and Chase, 11, where they grew up.

"We're not the kind of neighbors who knock each other's doors down visiting, but when you need help, everybody helps everybody," said retired Asheboro police Chief Larry Allen, who lives near them and says strangers, too, have helped.

At a barbecue fundraiser in November, organizers ran out of chicken three times before selling 2,000 meals on a cold and rainy day. Her medical bills, including her prosthesis, could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Terry's Plumbing connected the Byrds to city water after years of well problems, and then refused to accept any money.

Just 48 hours before her release from the hospital, a spontaneous gathering in front of the house turned into a wheelchair ramp project.

"We said don't hire anybody to do it, we've got enough people here to take care of it," Allen recalled telling Jason Byrd. "We started early the next morning and we finished up well into the night. We finished by lightbulbs."

Just like the group that built the ramp and bought the materials at no cost to the family, the lady whose name Allen did not know who brought them lunch wouldn't take a dime.

"Everybody in the neighborhood was there when she come home," Allen said, choking up. "Somebody called when she got 10 minutes from Asheboro. It was kind of heart-touching. She got out of the car crying. All of us were."

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Daughter Taylor started driving on a learner's permit before the accident.

"I've had to grow up a lot," she said before helping her mom use a "transition" board to scoot from the wheelchair to the passenger side seat of their car. On this night, Jason Byrd is out of town at a college basketball game, and her grandmother has been called away on a family emergency. Byrd says she's comfortable riding with Taylor in the driver's seat.

Taylor knows her mom wouldn't complain about anything.

"Sometimes she feels bad when I'm doing my homework, and she needs me to help her get to the bathroom," Taylor said. "I told her not to feel that way, that we're just happy that she's alive."

Sitting through two programs hours apart at Chase's school, as people stop to say hello, Byrd keeps a smile.

But her eyes reveal a hint of weariness.

"I've always been such an upbeat person that my kids wouldn't know what to do if I was sad," she quietly admitted later.

To meet Byrd, who is determined to walk again, is to root for her, says her doctor, who believes it could happen.

"Her attitude is pretty remarkable, to have gone through what she went through and to remain upbeat and positive," Carroll said. "It's probably critical for her achieving the goals she wants to achieve."

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com