It was pretty impressive considering that only a year ago she could barely walk and had lost her right hand and most of her left. Doctors still want to take her left arm off but she won’t let them.
Everything about Sherry Lynn Bean is remarkable these days. By all rights, she should be dead.
Bean was the victim of a brutal attack in March of 2003. Someone savagely beat her and then set her on fire with pine straw. The following morning, a tree-trimming crew discovered her burned and naked body lying on the concrete floor inside a garage near Holiday Town Apartments, an area of Southern Pines plagued by illegal drug use. She admits that she struggled with drug use in her past.
Her attacker or attackers had left her to die. She had a fractured skull and third-degree burns over 40 percent of her body. She still says she has no memory of the attack.
She went to the Jaycee Burn Center at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill and endured 27 surgeries, hours of rehabilitation and untold amounts of medication over 11 months. Her mother, Patricia, was by her side every day. She was her top nurse.
“No one does it like Mom does it,” Sherry Bean says.
“Sherry is really a miracle,” her mother says. “How she survived, (the doctors) just don’t know.”
In order to get home, she had to learn to walk again. When she did come home last February, she could barely walk. Now, she gets around fine.
She has a prothesis on her right arm. She feeds herself and does the dishes.
When Bean is feeding herself, her mother can hear curses come from the other room when she drops the fork. She wants to rush in and help, but she knows that the only way for her daughter to learn is to do it herself.
“I feel like an infant,” Sherry Bean says. “I had to learn to do everything.”
Throughout the two years, she’s battled depression. When she first came home, she had horrible nightmares. She dreamed of people breaking into the house and torturing her and cutting her legs off. Now, the nightmares are less frequent. She blames much of it on the drugs.
“I couldn’t do anything,” she says. “I slept a lot. I’d be in bed by five o’clock. Now that I’m not on a lot of medication, I’m more interactive. I sit around and talk. I go places with my brothers. I didn’t even want to go out in public.”
When she does go out, she gets a lot of stares. She still won’t go out to dinner.
“That’s why they have take-out,” she says.
Adults are worse than children, she says.
She wishes that people would come up to her and ask what happened rather than stare. Her mother tries to tell her that they don’t mean anything by it.
“But it hurts my feelings,” Sherry Bean says.
Son Keeps Her Going
What keeps her going is her son, Travis. When she was attacked, he was 5. Now he’s 7. She helps him with his homework, spoils him and gives him a kiss before he goes to school every morning. She says he saved her life.
“I survived,” she says. “I learned to do things over again. I do it for Travis, so his life isn’t traumatized. So I can see him getting into college to be a doctor. Right, Travis?”
He doesn’t answer, just jumps in the chair with his grandmother and dog.
Patricia Bean has had a new life since the attack. Taking care of Sherry has been her full-time job.
Now, Sherry has healed enough that she is considering going back to work. She’s trying to get her GED and wants to be a nurse’s assistant.
Sherry Bean finds inspiration everywhere. She watches stories of people overcoming worse hardships.
“It helps me to understand there are people that are worse off than I am,” she says. “When I’m not wanting to try, I think, ‘There are people with way more problems than I have and they’ve gone on with their life.’”
“That makes me feel good, Sherry,” her mother says.
Police Need a Break
Police are still investigating the assault. Officers arrested a teenage boy shortly after the attack, but a judge later ruled that there was no probable cause to try him in court.
Very little has happened since then, and police are waiting to get a break. The Beans met with Assistant District Attorney Warren McSweeney on Jan. 25. Sherry Bean wanted to take the opportunity to tell the investigators a few things.
“I told him that they make me feel like my case isn’t that important,” she says. “‘I’m just this little white girl that’s just been swept under the rug. You’re not working hard enough to help me solve this.’”
They left the meeting feeling like the case was very much still on the minds of investigators. But the truth remains that their best hope is that Bean will remember something about the attack that could lead to an arrest.
Since the attack, Andy Thomas, a columnist for The Pilot, has crusaded to help Sherry. He set up the Sherry Bean fund at Wachovia Bank in Southern Pines and is now trying to get Bean an appearance on a daytime television talk show like “Maury” or “The Montel Williams Show.” They hope something like that might lead to a break.
“It’s just a big puzzle,” her mother says. “They cannot put it together.”
‘I’m Trying’
Since she’s regained her health, Bean has been going to schools to tell children about the dangers of drug use. After one of her speeches, a group of girls came up to her and asked if it would hurt if they hugged her. She said “no” and pulled them in. It’s the kind of interaction that she hasn’t had in awhile.
“I had friends,” she says. “None of my so-called friends have even called since this happened. My only friends are my family.”
Bean doesn’t know what she will do now. She can write, and Thomas procured her a computer that responds to vocal commands. Maybe in the future, she’ll be able to work.
“Life doesn’t always turn out the way you think it will,” her mother says.
“Life is not always good,” Sherry Bean says. “I’m just happy to be here for my son, so he doesn’t have to go to a grave to see his mama. ... The most important thing in my life is Travis. I have to show Travis that I’m trying.”
