My name is Christine Ochs and I am a survivor of a MVA on March 1, 1994. I was on my way home from work, so it was approximately 11:30 p.m. I was following behind an 80,000 pound semi-truck for 3 miles. When we got stopped at an intersection by a red light I was 2 or 3 car lengths behind the truck. The light turned green and the semi started forward and so did I, when the semi was through the intersection he saw a weight limit sign for trucks and realized that he had missed his turn and he was too heavy to continue down the road we were on. He stopped and I stopped because I didn't know if there was something in the road or what. The next thing I know this semi-truck is coming backwards towards me. My first reaction was to honk the horn, and that did nothing to stop the semi. My second reaction, which should have been my first, was to try to get my Taurus into reverse. As I was looking down to put the car in reverse the semi-truck hit me (the driver did not know that he had hit a car). He pushed me across a five-lane road and at least 2 car lengths back past the intersection where we had originally stopped for the red light. It was not until he started to make his left turn and his vehicle was moving forward that he caught sight of my crumbled car. The driver got out and came back to see if I was all right. At the time I was so upset and angry that I didn't realize that I was injured. The driver called his dispatcher, who was located in Willowbrook, IL and he called 911. We were right on the border between Taylor and Romulus, MI, so I didn't know which police would be responding. Because it was originally reported that it was a no injury accident 45 minutes later the police had still not responded. The whole time we were waiting for the police to get there he sat in his truck and I sat in my car (what was left of it). At that time the driver came back to see if I was still all right and I told him he needed to call his dispatcher and call whichever police department he called before and tell them I was not felling very well at this point. My neck and back were beginning to hurt and I was having trouble breathing. My breathing was very rapid, more from nerves and shock, than because I was suffering a heart attack. Within 5 minutes we had police at the accident scene from both Romulus and Taylor. The Romulus police officer got there about 1 minute before the other so he took all the information. Officer Grant wanted to call an ambulance for me but the closest hospital to us was one I wouldn't take a dog to, much less let myself be treated there. I was only 1 mile from my home and I said that if someone could call my husband I would let him take me to our regular hospital. Officer Grant said he would take me home as soon as the tow truck came to tow away my car. The driver of the semi-truck was ticketed for improper backing and after giving all his information was allowed to leave, as there was no damage to his semi. I realize now that I should have let the police officer call an ambulance, because after I got home, which by now was almost 1:00 a.m., my husband suggested that I take a couple of Tylenol and go and see the chiropractor in the morning. Part of his reasoning was that almost 2 years to the day of my current accident I had been involved in another accident and all the hospital did was give me pain pills and send me home. I knew that he had to get up in 3 hours to go to work, so I agreed. The next morning I did go to see Dr. Berus, who is a chiropractor, and she said that the headache that I woke up with was because my neck and spine were out of alignment. I took her at her word and never made an appointment with a medical doctor. In Michigan we have NO-FAULT Insurance so my car insurance was responsible for my entire medical and lost wages. I went back to work three months after the accident because they were threatening to replace me if I didn't come back immediately. I still had this blinding headache and I blamed my memory problems, irritability and general lack of motivation on the headache. I began noticing that I was making a lot of mistakes at work, I was reversing numbers and letters, and it seemed to take forever for me to finish work. In June of 1994 I told Dr. Berus that I was having REAL memory problems and she suggested the possibility of a closed head injury. She referred me to a neurologist who wanted me to have a neuro- psych evaluation. My insurance company refused to pay for the testing so I contacted an attorney to see what my rights were under our NO-FAULT Insurance. They told me to have the testing done and they also informed me that I should consider suing the trucking company if I had a closed head injury. So that is how my journey through the legal system began. I had the test and it confirmed that I had a TBI and I started outpatient rehab. I was seeing a speech therapist 3 times a week for cognitive retraining, a psychologist once a week for counseling, and going to group therapy once a week. At this time I was continuing to work afternoons after spending a good portion of my day either going to Dr. Berus or my rehab. I told my office manager and terminal manager about my closed head injury as soon as I knew about it. They both were very understanding and told me if it took me longer than 6 hours a night (I was only part-time) that was OK as long as I didn't go over 8 hours. They both were terminated in December of 1994, when the new terminal manager got there, my rehab team wanted to come into my workplace to see if there was anything that they could suggest to make it easier for me to cope with my job stresses. I had to tell the new terminal manager (BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE), about my closed head injury. To make a long story short I was fired in August of 1995. I had to sue my insurance company to get them to pay my lost wages, so of course my attorneys got almost as much of my settlement as I did. I don't know how it is in other states but in Michigan they only have to pay lost wages for 3 years from the date of your accident not 3 years from when you lose your job. It was not until June of 1997 that I finally received my settlement, and that was why the attorneys got so much, because their share was one-third plus expenses. I'm going to try to shorten the rest of my story because I know that we all suffer a lot of the same symptoms. Medically I was in physical therapy and going to a chiropractor for 13 months after the accident. I now suffer from intense stress headaches and migraines so I am still seeing a neurologist once a month. I see a psychologist once a week, because I have had a hard time dealing with all the changes in me since the accident, and suicide has crossed my mind, what's left of it, on more than one occasion. My trial finally started June 8, 1998, and lasted 2 weeks. I had a positive SPECT scan which showed that my left frontal lobe was injured, an abnormal EEG, 2 neuro-psych evaluations which showed TBI and 2 neurologists who agreed that I had a closed head injury, one of whom was the defense attorney's doctors. On the defense side they had one psychologist who testified that all of my problems were because I was depressed. I saw him in October of 1995 and in the previous 2 months I had lost my job, because they said I was no longer able to complete my work in a timely manner. Three days after I got fired my husband fell at work and broke his arm and 2 weeks after that my 43-year-old brother-in-law was killed in a tragic farming accident. Of course I was depressed, anyone would have been. What really upset me the most was that he said my 16 year old daughter had run away, and she did run away but not until after I had seen him, so he got that information from my insurance company records. I went to trial the first day for jury selections and opening statements. When I heard the defense attorney state that my doctors had convinced me that I had a TBI and that my only problem was depression, and he was going to prove that this had been something that had been going on for many years before my accident, I totally lost it. I spent the next 3 days of the trial in bed with a migraine headache. I never went back to trial until the day I was scheduled to testify. So I was not there when the jury returned with their verdict of NO INJURY! I was awarded nothing. My attorney tried to get the judge to overturn the verdict because it was a miscarriage of justice. The judge wouldn't because prior to the trial we had signed a high-low agreement with the trucking company's insurance firm. If we agreed to accept $1,000,000.00 (which was the policy limit) even if the jury awarded me $3,000,000.00 which was what my attorney was asking they would pay within 15 days and not appeal. The other stipulation was that I also lost my right to appeal, and if we lost they would still pay me $75,000.00. The attorney said that it was a good agreement and we should accept because the trucking company was no longer in business and 1 million was all I could really expect to receive. I never expected to receive the full amount the attorney was asking but I never thought in my wildest nightmare that the jury would come back with a no injury verdict, and that was why I signed the agreement. The strangest part of all, was that the defense attorney hired a P. I. to follow me one day, which he did for 8 hours and yet his videotape was only 14 minutes long. In his written report he stated that I appeared to be driving erratically, and at one point I appeared to be lost because I drove through the local McDonalds without stopping. Even his report supported my side. I will never understand how the jury could ignore the medical evidence and come up with the verdict that they did. I have voluntarily committed myself to the psych ward since the trial ended as I was not coping very well. I am trying very hard to put my life back together as best as I can, and look forward to the future instead of back on what used to be. I wish that more people really knew what a TBI does to a person, then maybe there would be more understanding and compassion.
