Family soldiers on after mom’s strange death

CARROLLWOOD — The yellow ranch house on Nicklaus Circle used to be “Grandma and Grandpa’s house.” The brother and sister would sometimes drop by with their mother.

But the mother is gone now, and the home is their own.

Carrie Dempsey’s 12-yearold twins, Megan and Chad, became orphans Jan. 14 when their mother died hours after jumping from a casino boat off the coast of New Port Richey to escape a fire.

For the twins, her loss also means the loss of the Cheval home she bought with their father, who died from diabetes in 2011. Their grandparents, Jules and Renee Deutsch, now pick them up from after-school sports practices and math club meetings at Martinez Middle School.

Renee Deutsch is still working on preparing chicken dinners the way her daughter did. Megan sleeps with her mother’s pillow and blanket, and burrows into them whenever she joins her grandparents on the living room couch to watch “Jeopardy!” Chad remembers to say “I love you” before he hangs up the phone.

The kids keep busy with school, clubs and sports. They talk about their mother constantly, but never talk of her death. They try to “stay positive” and strong, Jules Deutsch said.

“She gave her children a strength and a fortitude that I don’t know how anybody’s going to replace,” he said.

But when it comes to his own grief, Jules struggles to hold back tears. He points his index finger to his chest, over his heart.

“There’s a hole right here, and I don’t know if it’ll ever heal,” he said.

The Pasco-Pinellas medical examiner won’t release Dempsey’s official cause of death without pending results from a full toxicology test.

“Whatever the cause, she suffered a horrific death within a very short time after coming ashore,” said their attorney, Steven Yerrid.

She was the only one of 50 passengers to die.

Homeowners living along Harborpointe Drive in New Port Richey said Dempsey had bruises on her feet when she came to shore. She said her feet hurt, but not so badly to prevent her from joining the 14 other passengers transported to Bayonet Point Regional Medical Center.

But then Dempsey said it felt like her throat was closing up and she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t have time to go home before family rushed her to the hospital as her tongue and face continued to swell.

“When I first saw her in the ER, she did not look like herself, at all,” Renee Deutsch said.

Carrie had become so bloated and swollen she couldn’t speak, her parents said. She communicated by writing down short replies to her doctor’s questions. A doctor told her parents he was going to insert a breathing tube.

Carrie squeezed her father’s hand, but when her mother gave her a quick smile and thumbs-up on the way to surgery, Carrie looked back with panic in her eyes, Renee Deutsch said.

“That was it, that was the last time we saw her,” the mother said.