For Natalie Ann Baine, life wasn’t about being bored. And it wasn’t meant to be spent alone.
The University of Alabama junior was considering studying in London and Belgium this summer, if she could convince a friend to go along. After finishing her undergraduate degree in accounting, Baine wanted to attend graduate school. She was a busy college student with a contagious enthusiasm for life, according to friends and family.
“She lived life absolutely to the fullest,” Lexi Korowitz, Baine’s stepsister, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “She hated being alone. She was such a warm, giving person.”
But in a matter of seconds, everything changed. After cheering on her college football team in the national championship game in Miami, Baine, 20, was heading back to campus with friends when she was involved in a three-vehicle wreck in Montgomery, Ala., at 10:20 p.m. on Jan. 8.
It was supposed to be a quick stop off the interstate, but Baine was left critically injured when the pickup truck she was riding in collided with a bus carrying cheerleaders — also from the University of Alabama — and then another vehicle. On Friday, Baine died from her injuries.
Investigators believe the driver of the truck, whose name was not released, turned in front of the bus in an attempt to get on I-65, Martha Earnhardt, spokeswoman for Montgomery police, told The AJC on Tuesday. The bus hit the truck, which was then hit by a Chevrolet Impala, Earnhardt said. No charges have been filed in the crash, which remains under investigation.
The night before a new semester was to begin, Korowitz said she and her twin sister, Lauren, got a phone call from their father back in Roswell. It was about Natalie, and it wasn’t good.
“Get in the car and go, you’re closer,” Korowitz said her dad told her.
Just five months older than Natalie, Korowitz said she and her twin grew up with their stepsister, and the trio was pretty much inseparable.
“We lost the whole ‘step’ a long time ago,” Korowitz said. “Everyone thinks that we’re triplets. We all just blend.”
The three went together to the University of Alabama, where all three were juniors. After starting college in Tuscaloosa, Baine pledged to the Alpha Chi Omega sorority, but she was never far from the twins.
“In fact as freshmen, they occupied every other room on the fifth floor of their dorm,” Bill Korowitz, Natalie’s stepfather, said in an email.
As family members planned her funeral, Bill Korowitz shared the words of her obituary with The AJC.
“Always quick with a smile, Natalie knew no strangers and was never one to sit still,” the family-written obituary states. “She loved sports, which was second only to her family and friends. Her energy, enthusiasm, and love of life were felt by everyone that had the good fortune of meeting her.”
Baine began playing basketball when she was 5 years old and later was a four-year starter on the Roswell High School team. Occasionally, her name would appear on sports pages of The AJC, like on Jan. 13, 2007, when as a freshman, Baine led her team in scoring with 14 points in a loss to Northview. She started 111 games for the Hornets, setting a school record, according to her stepfather.
Baine could have played basketball in college, Lexi Korowitz said. But instead, she planned to focus on her education. Baine was an honor student, and her best subject was math, her family said.
Baine’s stepsisters plan to return to school this semester, but they know everything will be different. In addition to her large family, Baine leaves behind dozens of friends.
Morgan Thomas and Baine met in the first grade and were instant friends. They played together, grew up together and agreed never to be far apart, Thomas said.
“People knew us as Morgan and Natalie,” Thomas said.
Thomas also attends Alabama, and this year, she and Baine were roommates, sharing a home close to campus. Thomas had hoped to go to Miami with Baine, but it worried her mother, so she stayed at school. She had planned to wait up for Baine to get home and exchanged text messages with her not long before the crash.
Now, Thomas said she isn’t sure when she’ll be ready to return to the college she and Baine both loved. But Baine would want her to head back to school.
“We’re all going to be there for each other, taking it day by day,” Lexi Korowitz said. “She’s always going to be with us.”
Baine is survived by her stepfather and mother, Janet Korowitz, of Roswell, and her father and stepmother, Matt Baine and Delpha Pitts, of Tulsa, Okla., in addition to several siblings and grandparents.
A visitation will be held Thursday at Roswell Funeral Home. A funeral mass will be held at St. Peter Chanel Catholic Church in Roswell on Friday. The times have not yet been announced. Services will also be held in Oklahoma before Baine is buried at Floral Haven Cemetery in Broken Arrow, Okla.
Memorial contributions may be made in Natalie's name to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
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