Local artist’s tragic accident

Atlanta artist and DJ Vikki Vaden was driving home from the old Youngblood Gallery space in Grant Park one night when, suddenly, her world was turned upside-down.

At around 1 a.m. Vaden, her two dogs, and her roommate, Suzy Moran, left the gallery, which Vaden had recently rented and was sprucing up. She steered her Volkswagen Passat wagon through the side streets of Grant Park and approached Boulevard from Rosalia Street. She was in the midst of turning left onto Boulevard, to get to their house on the other side of the park, when a cop car traveling north on Boulevard slammed into them. Vaden says there was no siren.

The force of the impact threw one of the Passat’s axles more than 15 feet from the car, Vaden says. One of her dogs, a hound-mix named Sadie, also was thrown. Vaden says she and Moran crawled through the debris to try to save her. But it was too late.

Vaden’s other dog, Sadie’s sister Maybelle, was pinned inside the wreckage. Once they were able to pull her out, they realized that Maybelle’s back legs weren’t moving.

Vaden and Moran were taken by ambulance to Grady Memorial Hospital, where they spent the night. A friend took Maybelle to an emergency vet, where she underwent a $6,000 spinal surgery. Maybelle’s vet gives her an 80 percent chance of walking again. Vaden says that yesterday, ten days after the accident, Maybelle finally managed to wag her tail.

Vaden and Moran, who DJ the twice-monthly “Fringe Factory” psychedelic rock night at the Highland Inn Ballroom, are planning several fund-raising events for Maybelle’s vet bills. We’ll update those events here. To donate via PayPal, donations will be accepted at maybellefund@yahoo.com.