June 2, 2007
Family awarded '05 wreck damages
Stuckslagers get $2.2M for their injuries
Chris Stuckslager has the photographs and the metal screws and the scars to remember the July 2005 wreck that forever changed his life, but he himself has no memory of the collision.
His wife, Kim, however, remembers seeing him shortly after the wreck with a halo of blood around his head. Her 40-year-old husband was bleeding from the nose and mouth, had shattered his foot, broken his pelvis and injured his knee when a mowing tractor pulled out in front of his pickup truck on U.S. 15 South.
What followed was a two-year ordeal of medical and therapist appointments, a continuous stream of bills with little to no income, and an uphill battle against bureaucracy.
That ordeal has been partially mitigated by recent claims payments from workers’ compensation, but the Stuckslagers still worry about the future.
Will the payment be enough to last the rest of their lives? What if Chris’s condition deteriorates and the medical bills begin piling up again?
After the wreck, two years went by with both Kim and Chris out of work and no income save for a short-term disability payment. Kim, who was not working at the time of the wreck but had plans to return, said because they owned their home they were unable to apply for aid. Under the strain of the financial burden, the couple had to rely on family for financial support.
The two will now have a little reprieve from that burden as they were awarded $2.2 million from a U.S. District Court case against E&H Mowing Contractors Inc. and Gerald David Orr Contracting Inc., both from Tennessee.
The Bell Legal Group, the Stuckslager’s law firm, announced the award this week in a press release that noted the award was for actual damages.
Chris wants to return to work, Kim said. She describes him as a workaholic, the type of guy who worked 50 to 60 hours every week and even now has to be doing something. Even during an interview Friday, he was constantly in motion — working on the lawn, getting up to find photographs of the wreck and finally going to find a friend who’s to work on the sprinklers.
He cannot return to his former work, though — cleaning tanks containing hazardous materials — because the doctors say his brain injuries prevent him from being safety-aware in an industrial environment and his short-term memory is spotty.
“We’re dealing with it. What’s the alternative? He’s my husband — I love him,” Kim Stuckslager said.
Kim said a Columbia jury awarded the $2.2 million based on her husband’s presumed salary from the time of the wreck until his retirement, but the salary she would have gotten had she gone back to work as planned didn’t seem to get much consideration.
The award sounds like a lot of money, she said, but once the attorneys get their share, the experts who testified are paid and the medical bills are taken care of, the couple will probably get about half the award, which they plan to invest so they can have monthly income at least until Chris reaches retirement age.
Chris Stuckslager was driving a fellow worker down U.S. 15 South when Oscar David Montiel-Hernandez, then an employee of E&H Mowing Contractors Inc., drove into the road with a mowing tractor, colliding with Stuckslager’s 1996 GMC truck.
Stuckslager was flown via helicopter to Palmetto Health Richland in Columbia. He arrived at the hospital in a partially induced coma because of the severe head injuries.
Stuckslager cannot remember the collision or the entire day that led up to the incident. His earliest memory is a rehabilitation facility two weeks later in Atlanta called the Shepherd Center.
At the center, Chris Stuckslager had to learn to eat and speak again, according to his wife. He was unable to walk until that November.
Kim Stuckslager said she wants to return to work but cannot because she must care for her husband.
The couple is unsure as to whether Chris will ever return to work. Kim Stuckslager said he is unlikely to be hired because of his history with brain injury, though he’s anxious to return to work.
“He doesn’t think he has anything wrong with him,” she said.
Although Chris Stuckslager is able to drive, Kim said he has trouble with other things like multi-tasking or more complex math, all of which, she said, could hinder Chris from re-entering the work force.
Kim’s son, Wesley, 19, has also had to adjust. During the month the couple was at the rehabilitation center in Atlanta, Wesley had to stay home by himself. The wreck occurred when he was a senior in high school.
“He has kind of had to grow up fast,” she said.
She also said she has to provide extra care Chris during day-to-day activities. The constant attention inhibits her from finding work.
Kim knows the wreck could have been a lot worse.
“I could have lost him,” she said. “I need to count my blessings.”
Contact Staff Writer Jamie Hudson at jhudson@theitem.com or (803) 774-1222. Contact Senior Staff Writer Leslie Cantu at leslie@theitem.com or (803) 774-1250.
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