On March 21 of next year it will be four years since Chris and Amanda Manley were married on the L&N railroad bridge near Old Louisville Road in Bowling Green.

 “I thought that would be the strongest memory I had of that place,” Amanda Manley said.

 Instead, she will remember the call she received on Nov. 21 of this year about the motorcycle accident that occurred only one block away from the bridge at the corner of College Street and Riverview Drive. Chris had been involved in a motorcycle accident and was not wearing a helmet. He had to be flown to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville.

Since then, Amanda Manley has been living in the chairs outside the trauma unit.

“I go to every visitation I can,” she said. “I want him to know I am here for him.”

Amanda Manley said she and Chris Manley had been trying to start a family for the past three years.

“We wanted children so badly that we were beginning to consider adoption,” she said. “I guess all of that is on hold now.”

 Instead of looking forward to teaching a child to walk in the next few years, Amanda Manley must worry about teaching her husband to walk again. In the next week, Chris Manley will be moved to a live-in rehabilitation facility in Louisville that will re-teach him many of the motor-skills he lost.

 Amanda Manley said her insurance will only cover the first few weeks of his stay there, and the rest will be up to her to cover, so she and her family have set up donation canisters at many of the IGA stores in the Bowling Green area and one at the Domino’s Pizza on 31W where Chris worked as a delivery driver.