LEWISTON – Caitlin Bazinet opened her handbag, fished for her car keys and caught me staring at her.

“You didn’t think I could drive? I’m independent.”

The words were part statement of fact, part boast. This 22-year-old woman from Winthrop is very independent and that’s a miracle. Late on a Saturday night in December of 2008, Bazinet sped through her hometown, crashing her car into a utility pole. The impact flipped the car, split it in two. It burst into flames.

My brother, a Winthrop volunteer firefighter, called me the next morning. He was among the second wave of responders and he was shaken. Bazinet’s screams still echoed. “I don’t think she’s going to make it,” he told me.

Friday night, she lingered after the big crowd attending the Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl banquet filed out the doors. She gave hugs and was hugged. She has been the guest speaker at the pregame banquet, standing in front of the football players and cheerleaders who play and cheer for either the West or the East teams.

She’s described what happened that night and what happened for years afterward. Both feet and her left hand had to be amputated. Her fingers on her right hand are mostly gone. She suffered a spinal fracture and a fractured eye socket and those were just the most serious injuries.

Recently she completed a 30-second video for a series of Love to the Rescue commercials for Shriners Hospitals for Children. The video showing her high school graduation was shown Friday and the crowd stood and applauded when she was asked to speak. She did, for perhaps another 30 seconds. Public speaking is still not easy.

I had tried to talk with her before the 2009 Lobster Bowl. She remembered. “I was mean to you, wasn’t I? I’m sorry. I was dealing with so much.”

She had come to the banquet because she couldn’t stay away. “They saved my life,” she said of the Kora Shriners and the family that is Maine high school football. “I owe them so much and I can’t make (Saturday’s football game). I have to work.”

Her smile widened. “It’s not volunteer work. I’m getting paid.”

She lost her mother to cancer in 2001. On her 18th birthday she celebrated by asking someone to buy her vodka. Friends tried to keep her car keys from her but Bazinet got them back. She made the wrong decisions that night. She hurt others and most of all, herself.

“She’s undergone such a transformation,” said Jason Fuller, a former Lewiston High football coach and now its athletic director. He was involved in one of the first Lobster Bowls, some 20 years ago. Now he’s a member of Kora Shrine and Friday night was the master of ceremonies. He surprised Bazinet by calling her to the microphone. They hugged and it wasn’t perfunctory.

“This is why we play the game,” said Fuller. “It wasn’t intended to raise money at first, but now it’s what we do.”

Players and cheerleaders and Shriners seek pledges of donations. This year, $72,000 was raised for the hospitals. Some players and cheerleaders raised more than $1,000 each. Jared Petruzella of York got more than $2,000 in pledges and that was after a late start. He was added to the West team two weeks ago.

John Bapst Memorial High in Bangor raised $12,000 when its students heard the story of Courtney Wentworth, a sister of a teacher there. Wentworth was a Shriners Hospital out-patient beginning at 9 months of age and ending when she was 21, a year or two ago. She was Friday night’s guest speaker.

A Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl alumni page on Facebook has been started. It went from 200 to over 500 friends in the past 12 months.

Yes, some Maine high school football fans keep track of how many times the West team has beaten the East and vice versa. Fuller and the other Maine football coaches who keep volunteering count the Caitlin Bazinets.

“My special moment is at 4, just before the kickoff,” said Fuller, anticipating Saturday’s game. “I stand on top of the bleachers and look at everything, all the fans, the players, the cheerleaders, the Shriners, and think this is kind of special. We’re doing something good.”

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:

ssolloway@pressherald.com

Twitter: SteveSolloway