Cash Landing

This summer, Wood offered Phil Hedrick's wife a divorce settlement. The complicated deal was contingent on the courts' resolution of her bankruptcy and probate matters and, most significantly, stipulated that Gaela accept responsibility for the return of $3.3 million to Phil's estate. She also had to relinquish deeds to the couple's homes (Gaela's 18-year-old daughter, Courtney, who recently had her first child, would be allowed to live in the guest house in Branson until October 31) and titles to two vans, two boats, two Jet Skis, and an all-terrain vehicle (totaling about $46,000 in present value). Gaela would be allowed to keep the furniture and household goods she had moved to California's San Fernando Valley. And, based on California bankruptcy exemptions, Gaela would keep 75 percent of her original annuity payments from the settlement, about $6,800 a month, and a 1999 Ford Mustang (which cost about $20,000).

Gaela accepted the bargain, although court documents show she preferred a legal separation. Seven years after the Life Flight crash, her marriage to Phil was reaching its litigious conclusion.

At 10:40 a.m. on Tuesday, September 5, 2000, Phil and Gaela Hedrick were done. At that precise moment, Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Nixon unceremoniously announced their divorce final. It was the last difficult step of Hedrick v. Hedrick. "I am glad this one is over," Nixon said.Phil Hedrick is not permitted to speak for himself. Rebbecca Lake Wood, the Jackson County public administrator and court-appointed conservator of his estate, denied Pitch Weekly's request to interview Hedrick for this story. Wood says she worries he might have a physical and emotional relapse from discussing details of his life and the woman he married.

Wood also says she has legitimate suspicions Gaela might decide to appeal the divorce settlement, which becomes legally binding 30 days after the ruling (which is October 5, the publication date of this issue of Pitch Weekly).

"She is not going to upset my apple cart and walk back into circuit court," Wood says. "I think she has the capacity to do that based on her history in litigation. When I have a final judgment on all three fronts -- divorce is the last legal action pending -- our team will be able to talk."

About eight months ago, Dave Wofford, the former Life Flight crew member, had dinner with Phil, Jerry, and Dorothy Hedrick at the Outback Steakhouse in Lee's Summit. He says Phil is "doing remarkably well" these days.

"He still is physically handicapped, but mentally he seemed to be in a little better shape than before the last time," Wofford says. "Every time he seems to be doing a little better. There was a time when he was very depressed. I didn't see much of that this time."

Phil's depression, according to records and medical evaluations, was a constant threat to his recovery from the accident. After Dorothy and Jerry Hedrick became Phil's guardians, they wrote a meticulous set of "policies" for workers hired to assist him. They listed 30 of Phil's favorite pastimes that they had determined to be harmless: watching animals on the Discovery Channel; telling jokes; giving gifts; going to movies, parades, the mountains, and beaches. Lodged between reading Bev Doolittle art books and wearing designer clothes is this one: venting anger at Gaela.

Gaela is earning about $16 an hour working as a part-time labor and delivery-room nurse in California. She has no plans to make Hacker her fifth husband.

"Phil only knows what he has been told," Gaela says. "If I had the old Phil here, I could talk to him and tell him what really happened. I think he would agree with everything I did."