$2.25 Million Settlement After a North Carolina Crash That Required Multiple Surgeries

On February 27, 2022, a vehicle collision in North Carolina left one driver with injuries that reached almost every part of his body. The public record keeps the exact location, the county, and the other driver's name confidential, so the medical file carries the weight of the story.

The crash broke his right leg in two places, a supracondylar fracture near the knee and a comminuted fracture through the midshaft, with the second bone shattered into several fragments. The impact also tore his small intestine, producing a bucket handle tear of the terminal ileum with a mesenteric defect that extended to the cecum, and it left a serosal tear on his sigmoid colon. He fractured his breastbone, broke several ribs, and displaced his collarbone. A clot traveled to his lungs as a pulmonary embolism. His right knee held a torn medial meniscus.

Treatment started in the hospital and did not let up. He spent about two weeks in inpatient care, moving between the hospital and rehabilitation, and went through several surgeries as an inpatient plus one more procedure as an outpatient. The bowel damage left him with short bowel syndrome and dumping syndrome, conditions that change how a person eats and absorbs food for good, along with a ventral hernia tied to the abdominal trauma and the repairs that followed.

Adrienne Blocker, the managing trial attorney at DeMayo Law Offices in Charlotte, represented him. Instead of taking the dispute to a jury, the parties resolved it at mediation. Blocker's task there was to put a value on a recovery that no figure truly captures: the operations already behind him, the long term care a damaged digestive system demands, and the limits the injuries place on ordinary days.

The case settled on October 12, 2024 for $2.25 million. Because it ended in a negotiated settlement rather than a verdict, there was no jury award to challenge on appeal and no reduction or remittitur. North Carolina Lawyers Weekly reported the result that November, with the case name, the court, the defendant, and the mediator all left out at the parties' request.

The plaintiff described where the injuries left him in plain terms: "I'm not sure I'll ever get back to normal that way, but I'll do what I need to."