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The city of San Dimas has settled a lawsuit brought by a former teen beauty queen in connection with a 2005 auto accident that left her with severe brain injuries. According to an article in the Whittier Daily News, the city and Samantha Palumbo’s attorneys agreed to a $9 million settlement Thursday. Palumbo filed a personal injury lawsuit against the city more than a year ago alleging that a wooden equestrian fence Palumbo crashed into was a dangerous condition, which led to her traumatic brain injury.

According to the newspaper article, the accident occurred in March 2005 when Palumbo, then only 16 years old, careened off the road and clipped the fence causing the wooden poles to separate and crash into the vehicle. Palumbo was struck by one of the heavy wooden poles on the head. At the time of the accident she was Miss California Junior National Teenager. According to news reports, she underwent skull surgery, suffered brain damage and a broken jawbone. She is still undergoing treatment and had a surgery last week “to fill a hole in her head” left by the log that hit her during the accident.
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By: Staff Writer
Here is an example of how seriously you can get injured when you get rear-ended. Last week, a jury in Jacksonville Florida awarded a woman $3.4 million because she suffered permanent neck injury after a moving truck rear-ended her car in a 2004 crash, according to a news report in the Florida Times-Union.

Wendy Sugalski’s attorneys told the newspaper that the 37-year-old dance teacher will need lifelong medical treatment. She will have to go in to the doctor every six months to undergo a procedure that would numb the nerves in her neck so she wouldn’t be in constant pain, the article said. Sugalski’s injuries, which include a herniated disc, have caused her severe, consistent pain. According to her lawyer, she is able to teach dance classes but still cannot dance or demonstrate poses to her ballet and gymnastic dance students.

The accident reportedly occurred Nov. 8 2004 when a truck owned by Florida-based Reads Moving Systems hit her vehicle from behind. A Florida Circuit Judge ruled that the truck company was responsible for the damage from the crash. The six-person jury was given the job of putting a price on the damage.
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A 62-year-old man died this week in the Lincoln Acres area of San Diego, California when the truck he was driving collided with a piece of construction equipment that was reportedly abandoned on a freeway ramp. According to an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, that equipment was actually an air compressor on wheels, which was later reported stolen.

Joaquin Baltazar Lopez, who officials said was wearing his seatbelt, had to be extricated from his 1989 Toyota pickup truck. The newspaper reported that he died from the injuries even before he could be transported to the hospital. Hours after this auto accident, a company located 20 minutes away from the accident site reported to police that someone had broken into their facility and stole two pieces of equipment used to sandblast plaster from swimming pools, the newspaper article said.

Unfortunately, Lopez slammed into the abandoned equipment minutes after California Highway Patrol officials were notified about it. Officials are now looking for the driver and the vehicle that was pulling the compressor. It’s a tremendous tragedy for Mr. Lopez and his family. Sadly, he is not alone. California’s freeways are among the most notorious for highway debris.

According to a New York Times new article, in California alone, 155 people lost their lives in the last two years as a result of accidents involving objects on highways. The list of these objects reads like a yard sale or a grocery list – from grapes, oranges and strawberries to furniture and mattresses. In fact, in a case that bears an eerie similarity to this San Diego incident, a Long Beach man is facing murder charges in the death of a Los Angeles County Sherriff’s deputy who was killed when he swerved to avoid a stolen stove that had fallen off the man’s truck.

Here’s another statistic from that same article. Pickup trucks and other vehicles piled high with loads not properly secured contribute 140,000 cubic yards of freeway waste every year. That’s debris enough to fill 8,750 garbage trucks, according to a CalTrans official quoted in the Times article.
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Federal government acknowledges liability for injuries caused by a federal employee who ran a red light.

In what is said to be the largest personal injury award in Orange County history, a federal judge has awarded $55 million to a young Costa Mesa girl who was paralyzed in a fiery 2002 crash caused by a federal employee who ran a red light. According to an article in The Orange County Register, a federal government spokesman has said the decision will not be appealed and that the government acknowledges its liability in the incident.

Leilani Gutierrez was only 4 years old when the accident occurred. She was riding in the back seat snugly placed and buckled up in a car seat after a trip with her mother, June, to South Coast Plaza, according to news reports. The Register article states that Michael Leinert, an Army employee who was in the area on business, ran a red light broad siding Gutierrez’s Chevy Suburban.

The decision came after an eight-day trial. The case was decided by a federal judge instead of a jury. According to the Register article, the judge awarded a little over $1 million to the mother and $54 million to the girl of which $23 million will go toward medical bills and $31 million toward compensatory damages. The award does not include punitive damages.

This story is a clarion call for all of us to follow traffic rules. According to National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running, in 2002 as many as 207,000 crashes, 178,000 injuries and 921 fatalities were attributed to red light running in the United States. Between 1992 and 2000, fatal motor crashes at traffic signals increased 19 percent, outpacing the rise in all fatal crashes. And public costs exceed $14 billion a year!
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A school district in Santa Barbara County has settled for $1.5 million with the family of a woman who died in a fiery crash last year when she was hit by a minivan driven by a school principal during a school trip. According to a news article in the Santa Maria Times, the lawsuit filed against the Cuyama Joint Union School District by the family of Marie Crook alleged wrongful death  and property damage from the Sept. 28 crash, which also took the life of Cuyama Valley High School Principal Donald Wilson.

According to the article, the crash occurred when the 49-year-old Wilson was heading back from a school trip with the students following in a separate vehicle. For some unknown reason, Wilson’s minivan drifted across the centerline and collided head-on with the 75-year-old Crook’s vehicle, which caused Crook’s fatal injuries. The woman’s husband, James Crook, who was driving at the time, also suffered major injuries in the crash, the article said. James Crook and the couple’s 11 children received a $1.4 million settlement from the school district and a $100,000 settlement from Wilson’s life insurance policy totaling to $1.5 million.

The plaintiff’s attorney said he was happy with the settlement because of James Crook’s age and the possibility of a lengthy trial as well as possible defense testimony that Wilson may have swerved into oncoming traffic because he suffered a heart attack as he was driving.
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Big Rig driver called a hero by fire officials. Four people died and a toddler is in critical condition after they were injured in a fiery three-vehicle collision in Ontario. According to a news report in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the accident was triggered by an 18-year-old driver, who lost control of his Ford Explorer and veered over the yellow line, slamming head-on into the front of a Chevrolet minivan. The impact of that crash caused the minivan with five people to spin around and hit a Ford Escort, the newspaper reported.

A 64-year-old woman and a 70-year-old man in the minivan were both ejected and pronounced dead at the scene. A 60-year-old woman riding in the back of the minivan with two little boys also died later that day. A 4-year-old boy died in the hospital and a 1-year-old boy was air-lifted to the hospital with massive head and chest injuries, according to the article. The boy is still fighting for his life. The driver of the Explorer was also ejected and suffered injuries to his legs and body but is expected to survive as is the 45-year-old driver of the Escort.

According to eyewitness reports, all vehicles were traveling at 50 mph, the posted speed limit. The article also stated that two good Samaritans provided help to the victims. Fire officials said a tractor trailer driver who saw the crash and put out the fire that started in the front compartment of the Explorer, was a hero. A deputy from Rancho Cucamonga administered first-aid to the victims until paramedics arrived, the Bulletin reported.

It is not known what caused the young driver of the Explorer to lose control of his vehicle and cross the yellow line. There is no information on whether he was under the influence of alcohol or whether he was distracted by a cell phone or something else that he was doing when the accident occurred. I am interested to know how this tragic crash occurred. It is indeed a gruesome, heart-breaking tragedy for the families of all the injured. My prayers are with the families and especially with the baby who is fighting for his life in a hospital.
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Medical examiner, Michael Graham, revealed that St. Louis Cardinals pitcher, Josh Hancock, was drunk when he died in a car accident a week ago. Graham indicated in a press conference that Hancock was almost twice the legal blood alcohol limit when he crashed into the back of a tow truck that happened to be on the side of the road helping another driver. The tow truck driver was not injured, but Hancock, who was not wearing a seat beat died within seconds of impact from severe head and chest injuries, according to the medical examiner. Additionally, Police Chief Joe Makwa found marijuana and a glass pipe which is used to smoke marijuana inside of Hancock’s Ford Explorer, although toxicology tests have yet to determine if Hancock had drugs in his system at the time of the crash.

It also seems that Hancock was involved in another traffic accident the week before his death on April 26th. Shortly before that accident an unidentified couple, who were present at a steakhouse where Hancock was eating, indicated that he seemed to be drinking heavily and was impaired. They also claimed that they overheard Hancock telling ESPN broadcaster, Dave Campbell, that he [Hancock] had been in big trouble with Tony La Russa, Cardinal manager, because he was late to a game and too ‘hung over’ to play. This account was denied by La Russa who had his own brush with a DUI in March in Florida. La Russa also stated that he would have known if Hancock had a problem, because anyone with a drinking or drug problem could not perform at the level Hancock performed. Hey La Russa, why don’t you tell that to Hancock’s family!
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Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law – at least, most of the time. A Los Angeles Times news article reported that California Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of reckless driving. A woman and her child were injured during that May 18 incident when Migden was reportedly driving erratically on the I-80 between Berkley and Sacramento. The Senator was sentenced to two years of probation and was ordered to pay $710 in fines and court fees, the Times reported.

According to the article, California Highway Patrol officials released tapes of 911 calls from several concerned motorists who reported that Migden was weaving in and out of traffic lanes and using her cell phone. Nine callers reported an SUV which matched the description of the vehicle driven by Migden striking a guardrail several times. Callers described her this way: “She is all over the place.” The Senator finally got off the freeway and slammed into a stopped car in Fairfield causing minor injuries to a woman driver and her 3-year-old daughter, the Times article stated.

Migden’s defense? She could only guess that the chemotherapy pills she was taking for leukemia may have caused her erratic driving. Officials did not find Migden to be drunk or intoxicated, but said she was driving at an unsafe speed (80 to 85 mph), made an unsafe turn and was distracted because she was talking on the cell phone. Migden says she is not going to drive again until her doctors give her clearance to do so.
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A community in Riverside is mourning the death of five people – including three teenagers of a church youth group and their 28-year-old director — who died in a fiery crash last week after their van crashed with a pickup truck and a car on an isolated stretch of Highway 395 in the High Desert south of Kramer Junction, according to an article in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

Nine members of the First Presbyterian Church in Upland were inside the 11-passenger van returning from a mission to a sister church in Bishop when it was struck. The article stated that the impact was severe enough to tear a Ford pickup into pieces and in fact, tore apart the truck’s body from its chassis, leaving the engine and the transmission lying on the ground. Apart from those who died, at least nine people were injured in the crash, the newspaper reported.

The crash was first reported shortly before 3 p.m. on June 23. It happened about six miles south of Highway 58, near Edwards Air Force Base. Smoke could be seen 17 miles from the crash site, according to the highway patrol. Several witnesses helped victims. One of then, an off-duty battalion chief with the Corona Fire Department, rescued a woman from the burning van with the help of others even as they were being driven away by the heat of the desert combined with the burning vehicle.

This collision followed another multi-fatality crash June 22 on the 40 Freeway near Ludlow when a Chevrolet Trailblazer, carrying four passengers, flipped over. In that crash, three of the vehicle’s occupants were pronounced dead on the scene.
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It was a graduation trip out of a horror movie for four Perris High School seniors who died this week from injuries suffered in a car crash on the way to the beach, according to an article in the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Officials say speed and alcohol were definitely factors that contributed to the crash. Family and friends of the four teenagers are struggling to accept eyewitness accounts of the boys tearing down the road at 90 to 100 mph and waving beer cans out the window, the newspaper article said.

The newspaper identified the four students who died as: Jose Espinoza, 18; Pablo “Paul Ruiz”, 18; Javier Aguayo, 17; and Anthony O’Neil, 17. All the boys, except for Espinoza, died on scene after their Acura Integra careened off I-15 in Escondido and rammed into a tree. Right before they went off the road, the teens had passed a full school bus that was headed to the beach, CHP officials told the newspaper. Perris school district officials say the students should have been on one of those buses and not in their own vehicle because it was a school-sponsored trip to Mission Beach.

According to eyewitness reports, another black vehicle with tinted windows was racing with the Acura the teens were in. Officials are also looking into how the students obtained the alcohol. Friends and neighbors refused to believe that the boys were drinking or showing off their beer cans. Teachers described all four boys as outgoing.
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