Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this brain injury/personal injury case and its proceedings.)
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
On the date of the collision Plaintiffs had stopped at the intersection of White Road in the left turn lane where they waited for the red arrow signal to turn green. Upon the signal cycling to a green arrow, Sherrie Martin proceeded into her left turn in a normal course and speed.
Defendant Dan Brown was traveling westbound on S.R. 40 in his 2000 Ford F-150 dual-wheeled utility truck at approximately 60 miles-per-hour and failed to stop at the red light causing the collision. Brown was in the course and scope of his employment with the California Gas Company at the time of the collision.
The defendants’ Ford truck struck the Martins’ vehicle directly at the passenger side where Paul was seated. Brown admitted in deposition that he did not brake before the impact and that he was traveling at least 55 miles-per-hour. The deepest point of impact was the right-front grill of the Ford piercing through the passenger door and window area where Paul’s head was located.
Paul suffered life-threatening injuries on the scene including a severe head trauma, brain hemorrhage, collapsed lung, fractured pelvis, multiple fractured ribs, spleen and liver lacerations, internal bleeding, and other cuts and soft-tissue injuries. At the scene, Paul initially had a Glasgow Coma Scale of 13 which quickly fell to a 3 when he became completely unresponsive. Paul went into respiratory failure at the scene likely due to brain swelling (subdural bleed in bilateral frontal lobes) and/or aspiration.
Paul could not be intubated at the scene due to his locked jaw until the critical care/air ambulance crew arrived. Paul was air-lifted first to Desert Hospital, where they did not have the necessary facilities to treat Paul’s severe injuries, and then air-lifted to Loma Linda where he spent the next nine days in intensive care. (See Part 3 of 7.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.