Woman Hit By Mack Truck Wins $350,000

At 6:30 in the morning a young woman was crossing 23rd Street in Manhattan at the intersection of First Avenue. Despite her crossing with the walk signal, and walking in the crosswalk, a Mack truck carrying demolition debris was making a left turn at the same time. Despite three separate signs that direct  drivers to yield to pedestrians, the truck continued to make its left-hand turn knocking down this young woman causing her to hit her head and suffer severe fractures of her wrist.

Police arrived at the scene along with an ambulance, and she was taken to Bellevue Hospital trauma center in New York City for evaluation. In the emergency room she had all of her clothes cut off, she had x-rays, CT scans and a thorough physical exam which revealed the following:

She suffered a bleed in her head, lacerations to her forehead and the back of her head, a contusion, a concussion, loss of consciousness, and a fracture of her wrist in multiple places. She received stitches to the lacerations on her head, and was given a cast to mobilize her wrist and told to follow up with an orthopedic surgeon for further treatment.

A few days later she consulted with an orthopedic surgeon who advised her that she needed to have surgery, known as open reduction with internal fixation and external fixation. What this means is that in order to stabilize the broken bones, she would need to have surgery to put the bones back into place and hold them together with hardware that would be attached to her bones. That is known as internal fixation. In addition, she would also require a device to hold the bones in the place from the outside of her arm, known as an external fixator.

After many weeks of being in a cast with metallic titanium rods sticking out of her arm, the external hardware was removed along with the cast. She remained out of work for a number of weeks, and with physical therapy was able to get most of her motion back.
 
Despite the fact the trucking company had no defense, they refused to try and settle this case until the day before jury selection.

I'm pleased to say that my client was satisfied the settlement offer of $350,000 which will compensate her for the injury she suffered through no fault of her own.