Head-on collision leaves Sunmount members grieving for one of their own

By SHERRY HALBROOK
PEF member Joanne Burrows loved to drive and she loved people.

On the morning of Monday, December 11, she was driving a state van carrying three co-workers and three clients from Sunmount Developmental Disabilities Services Office in Tupper Lake to Binghamton to visit another facility that treats developmentally disabled individuals.

It was Burrows’ last trip. She was killed when a minivan going the opposite direction on Route 3 near Watertown crossed into her lane and hit the state van head-on.

The other driver, a young mother traveling with her 15-month-old son, was critically injured. The child was not seriously hurt.

PEF member Joel Bartlett suffered a deep gash on his forearm which required surgery.

The three clients and two other state employees — Lisa White and Cindy Hoyt — suffered only minor injuries.

The accident, which occurred at about 8 a.m., left the Sunmount community stunned and grieving.

“It was just a terrible tragedy,” said Ed Snow, council leader of PEF Division 242 at Sunmount.

“Joanne was just a very down-to-earth person who would do anything for the clients.

“We’ve tried to do whatever we can to support our members and Joanne’s husband, Dave, who used to be a nurse at Sunmount.”

“Joanne was a decent soul, in every sense of the word,” her husband said. “She had compassion for the underdog, for the consumers and for the people she worked with.”

Joanne Burrows was 53 and less than two years from retirement. She had worked for the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities for many years at the central offices in Albany before transferring to Sunmount about 20 years ago, becoming a program manager on an intensive treatment unit. She was a social worker 3.

At Sunmount she met PEF member Mary Wu and over the years they became devoted friends.

“We were best friends,” said Wu, who can scarcely speak about her loss without giving way to tears.

“Joanne felt she had to respond to anyone in need,” Wu said. “To her, the consumers were just people who needed more than anyone else, and she gave them her all. She would often put in 20 hours of overtime on weekends driving them to visit their families or attend family events. She felt maintaining contact with their families was so important to them.”

Rabbi Kenneth White, a Sunmount chaplain and assistant council leader of Division 242, led three services in memory of Joanne Burrows — two on the campus and another private one for the family.

“I knew her for many years,” White said. “She was a dynamic professional, forthright, honest and very strong in advocating for her consumers and fighting for what she thought was right.

“She was extremely well liked. It was standing-room only at the services for her.”

“Ed Snow and all of our stewards really kicked into high gear when this happened,” White said. “PEF President Ken Brynien called several times to ask if anything more could be done, and PEF assigned a staff person in Albany to be the sole contact person for David Burrows and the family.”

Joanne Burrows had three children by a previous marriage — Paul, Chad and Stephanie Clement.

Snow praised PEF member Nancy Kall of Division 247 in Watertown who was asked by Sunmount to go to Samaritan Hospital there to help the injured and their families.

“I really give Nancy a lot of credit,” he said. “She’s a social worker and she even asked her pastor to come to the hospital and meet with Joel Bartlett and Dave Burrows.”

The Communicator Feb. 2007

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