National & International

Metro & State

Meet Butch Ferrell, who lives on Richard M. Scrushy Parkway in Fairfield. Because epilepsy has stopped him from getting a driver license, he calls himself "transit-dependent."

"The only way I have of getting anywhere is to ride our transit system."

Butch says he has a difficult time even thinking about that kind of money.

"...it's almost as though I live in fantasyland, it's just more than I can comprehend and why people would even conceive of doing -- with their way of acting about it -- in the use I could see how it could help people that live in my neighborhood."

He says with even a fraction of the allegedly made-up funds, a viable transit system in Birmingham could replace the frustrating one Butch encounters daily. On the day of the interview, Butch's bus to central station was 20 minutes late. Most times, he doesn't know when it'll show up.

"...it can be right smack on time, or sometimes you're just as lost as they are! Now, if we had billions of dollars, I could save a lot of time on profanity. My love is baseball. I can't get to the ballpark, cause there's no transit system that'll take me there..."

Simma Wright is studying to be a Physical Therapy Assistant at Jefferson State Community College's Richard M. Scrushy campus in Shelby County.

"I don't know how much two billion dollars is. That's ridiculous."

She and fellow student Donna Brown say that kind of money could've been better used educating future PTAs. Donna says in a way, more educated Physical Therapy Assistants and a bigger pool from which to choose could help rehabilitation companies such as Healthsouth.

"I'm paying for school. I'm taking out loans to go to school. There should be more scholarships for those who want to pursue a career in this field."

Donna says all that allegedly inflated money is -- in her word -- "greed."

Doctors say 5-year old Rachel Dickey has certain symptoms of Spinabifida and Cerebral Palsy, an undiagnosed genetics syndrome. She's in a wheelchair and uses a computerized typing pad to talk. She loves punching her name on the pad.

"My-name-is-Rachel, my-name-is-Rachel, my-name-is-Rachel." Her mom, Lisa Dickey laughs because Rachel hit the button so many times...

Since age six months, Rachel has attended the "Hand-in-Hand" program at the United Cerebral Palsy Center of Greater Birmingham on Lakeshore Parkway, southwest of Birmingham. The main entrance is named for Richard Scrushy and as WBHM's Tanya Ott explained in her Non-profit Reality story, a lot of the money to build the facility came from the Healthsouth Foundation.

Lisa Dickey says to write out two-and-a-half billion dollars worth of checks would mean finding more zeroes than she's ever known in one number.

"I have a house that when we built it was only $120,000, so to say billion is just beyond me."

But Lisa says if given the opportunity, she would want Rachel to continue at the UCP Center.

"Right now, they only go from birth to 5-years old, I would love for my daughter to continue here through Kindergarten, First Grade all the way to Senior, Twelfth grade. That would be my dream... to be able to increase this facility to handle that."

~Steve Chiotakis, June 17, 2003