Gladys and Andrew Holder spend time with their father, Douglas Holder, at Vencor Hospital. Holder was seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident Nov. 10, 1997. He died eight months later, having never left the hospital. JOCK FISTICK//Tribune photo.

TAMPA - Douglas James Holder loved to walk.

A crash paralyzed him.

He loved to sing. A crash silenced his tenor.

On Nov. 10, 1997, an Oldsmobile ran a stop sign on 50th Street. Holder, then 58, was riding a Tampa church van filled with eight people, mostly family.

He was razzing 13-year-old Fredrick Jenkins about music.

``Man, you can't beat no drum,'' Holder, a respected gospel singer, teased.

Everyone burst out laughing.

Then came the boom.

The Oldsmobile driver, Etzer Jean-Louis, fled on foot, leaving the car.

Four months later, on a March 1998 morning, Andrew Holder stood solemnly at his father's bedside in Vencor Hospital, where a respirator hissed methodically and Douglas Holder stared blankly at the ceiling.

``If he can't sing, he's got children that can do that now for him,'' Andrew said softly.

Jean-Louis - who initially claimed his car had been stolen - had already been arrested, convicted and sentenced.

He'd already done his 101 days in jail.

He was free when Douglas Holder, cousin to Tampa's police chief, died July 18, 1998, having never left the hospital.

The death wasn't recorded as a traffic fatality, because Holder lived eight months after the crash.

Officially, he escaped with incapacitating injuries.

So did 1,648 other victims of hit and run accident in Florida that year.