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The Fall & Rise of Albert Tharin

Albert Tharin’s world was tumbling out of control. One moment, the Florida native was driving down a leafy suburban avenue. The next, his white Ford Explorer was violently rolling side-over-side around him. The crunch of metal and rattle of broken glass sounded to Tharin like someone shaking a child’s piggy bank. By the time it stopped, his side was on the concrete and his legs were pinned under the steering column. It was July 30, and Tharin had been on his way to pick up food and supplies for his restaurant, Albert’s Grill, in Columbia Heights. The burger joint had been open a little over a year, and buzz was starting to build about its unusual menu item: alligator burgers. Tharin wiggled his toes and heard someone shout: “There’s blood!” In a few hours, his restaurant was supposed to host a wedding party’s rehearsal dinner. And the following morning he was scheduled to promote his business as a guest on a local television program. Tharin should have been getting ready, but instead he was trapped and waiting for emergency responders to cut him out of his mangled SUV, which had been broadsided by an inattentive teenage driver at an uncontrolled intersection and was now starting to smoke. It wasn’t the first time a force beyond his control had tipped his life upside down.

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