In the predawn hours on a rural and unlit section of I-95 in Volusia County, the defendant truck driver fell asleep at the wheel as he traveled down the highway in an overloaded logging truck. As the tractor-trailer overturned, it strew logs across the roadway and shoulder. Minutes later, as Jane Doe and her teenage daughters were on their way to the airport for an early morning flight, Jane will never forget the horror of traveling down the road on a dark, unlit and unfamiliar highway, and suddenly feel her car shaking and the next moment realizing there was something ahead of her – she couldn’t comprehend what it was – but it was something huge blocking the northbound lanes of I-95 and the next thing she knew – she smacked head on into an overturned tractor trailer. Her Mazda ended up facing the opposite direction on the east shoulder of I-95 and within seconds, they were struck again by another tractor trailer, fully loaded, with enough force that it overturned their vehicle onto its roof. At that moment, a third tractor trailer carrying chemicals struck the overturned logging truck and erupted into a full blown explosion with fire engulfing the vehicles.
Jane Does are very lucky to have survived this crash. One of the teenage daughters was air lifted to the nearest trauma center with a serious spinal injury requiring an emergency three level fusion and other significant internal injuries. The other daughter broke her clavical, snapped her left femur in half requiring emergency surgery with hardware and suffered other internal and lower extremity injuries. The mother sustained a closed head injury with significant internal and lower extremity injuries that required surgery.
Murray Guari was able to successfully resolve the case on behalf of the Doe family.
