$2 Million Settlement for a Child Whose Foot Was Crushed by a Dump Truck at a North Carolina Truck Stop

In September 2021, an 8-year-old child was on foot in the parking area of a North Carolina truck stop when a dump truck rolled over his left foot. The vehicle was moving at roughly 16 miles per hour. The driver later said he first thought he had run over an animal before he understood what had happened. Accident reconstruction documented 13.4 feet of tire impressions on the pavement leading up to the point of impact, evidence that the truck had been rolling forward across ground a child was standing on.

The injury to the foot was severe. The child suffered a complete degloving injury, in which the skin and soft tissue are stripped away from the bone underneath. Medical records described displaced fractures of the second, third, and fourth metatarsal bones and a dislocation of the great toe. Surgeons amputated two of his toes.

The first hospital stay lasted 44 days. During that time and in the months that followed, the child went through multiple operations, including reconstructive surgery and skin grafting. Doctors recorded permanent consequences: an abnormal gait, contractures, chronic pain, visible disfigurement, and lasting limits on how the foot would work. A child of eight faces decades of follow-up care for an injury like this one, and the records reflected that long horizon.

Preston Lesley, a partner at the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin in Raleigh, represented the family. With no trial needed, the case was built on the physical evidence at the scene and the medical file. The reconstruction of the truck's speed and tire path placed the vehicle's movement against the child's position, and it raised the question of how a driver in a crowded lot failed to keep watch for a child on the ground. The medical documentation connected the lifelong impairments directly to the crash.

The available insurance consisted of a $1 million primary policy and a $1 million excess policy, for a combined $2 million in coverage. The matter resolved on January 23, 2025, for the full $2 million. The recovery was arranged as a structured settlement designed to fund the child's continuing and future medical care.

North Carolina Lawyers Weekly reported the result in February 2026.