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Car Wrecks for Fun and Profit
allen griggs
Member Posts: 35,692 ✭✭✭✭
On Dec. 2 of 2011 I was driving down I 85 in South Carolina, about midnight. I was doing the speed limit and was perfectly legal.
Suddenly, I was in the middle of a bad wreck. As I told the State Trooper, "I didn't know what happened, it felt like a 500 pound bomb hit my Nissan. If you figure out what happened, please tell me."
Well, in a few minutes, he told me that a drunk girl had smashed into me from behind. It turned out she was doing 105, drag racing. The impact accelerated my little truck up to about 75 mph, and I spun to the left and had a head-on with the concrete barrier.
Spun around another 180 degrees, and came to rest right on the shoulder of the road.
It was all over for my beloved little Nissan:
I was pretty banged up but felt like nothing was broken. Turned down the ambulance ride and got a ride home.
The next morning, I felt like I had been beaten up by 4 Hell's Angels with baseball bats. I could barely walk. My neck really hurt.
Went up to the Doc in the Box clinic. They took xrays, doc said it looked like I had a fractured neck. He sent me up to Mission Memorial Hospital in Asheville for the CT scan. Radiologist said he thought I had a broken neck and needed emergency surgery, or else, I would be paralyzed. Got the MRI right then.
The second radiologist said there was no broken neck, and sent me home. I spent 14 scary hours in the hospital that day.
Still, I was in pretty rough shape. I had 11 visits to physical therapy. I missed 6 weeks of work. Had to go see my knee doc to make sure my titanium knee had not been knocked loose.
Glasses were broken in the wreck, had to buy new glasses for $600, eye doc said it looked like there was a bulge in my eye from the wreck. She made an emergency appointment for me at the eye clinic in Asheville the next day. I had to spend 3 hours at the eye clinic to make sure I wasn't having a stroke. The eye clinic cleared me but those tests cost $950.
Six months later my neck and knee still hurt like hell, I went and got more physical therapy. I am 63 years old and don't bounce as well as I used to.
So, considering the drunk gal was as guilty as she could be, in that, she was convicted of dui and causing the wreck, you might think that I got a healthy payday.
Well I didn't.
It turned out she had the minimum insurance that South Carolina mandates, which is $25K. I had to hire a lawyer and he cleaned her insurance policy out, but he got $8K. So I "cleared" $16K. Sounds pretty good. Also, once you clear out the insurance policy, the next thing you do is sue the offender personally. My lawyer got an agent to check her out and she didn't have 2 nickels to rub together. Single mom with 3 children, living in a rented trailer.
You start with 6 weeks missed pay, that is $7,000. Co-pays at every doctor or physical therapy visit, of which there were about 30, that was about a Grand. Not to mention car expenses for all those visits, about $700. Glasses, $600. Laptop was smashed, that was $500.
There were many more costs out of my pocket, I have been trying to forget this disaster to be honest with you and don't think about it any more. But, I had "cleared" about $3 Grand. Great. I wouldn't go through this nightmare again if you offered me $50 Grand.
But here is the frosting on the cake of doo-doo. Last week I got the final bill from Mission Memorial, I still owed them $2,700. Good God I thought this nightmare had ended a year ago.
I talked to my lawyer, and to a consumer helper outfit, they both told me that I owed the dough and ought to try to talk Mission Memorial down, but I had to pay. I talked the hospital down by 20 percent and paid them off with $2100 cash two days ago.
So, I "cleared" 900 bucks off of this wreck. Figuring all the hours I put in, I made about $4 an hour. You hear about people getting hundreds of thousands for "pain and suffering." Hell I know all about pain and suffering. I got 2 teeth knocked out playing high school football. Broke my ankle playing college soccer. Slashed my thigh for 30 stitches, cutting trees with a chain saw. 145 stitches in the forehead in high school, car wreck. There are many more injuries on my list but I will stop there. I know all about pain and suffering. If I were fairly compensated for the pain and suffering I endured in this wreck, we would start at $75 Grand, and go up from there.
I have had it. If any more medical providers come out of the woodwork demanding money, I will tell them to screw off! I have had it with this nightmare.
Suddenly, I was in the middle of a bad wreck. As I told the State Trooper, "I didn't know what happened, it felt like a 500 pound bomb hit my Nissan. If you figure out what happened, please tell me."
Well, in a few minutes, he told me that a drunk girl had smashed into me from behind. It turned out she was doing 105, drag racing. The impact accelerated my little truck up to about 75 mph, and I spun to the left and had a head-on with the concrete barrier.
Spun around another 180 degrees, and came to rest right on the shoulder of the road.
It was all over for my beloved little Nissan:
I was pretty banged up but felt like nothing was broken. Turned down the ambulance ride and got a ride home.
The next morning, I felt like I had been beaten up by 4 Hell's Angels with baseball bats. I could barely walk. My neck really hurt.
Went up to the Doc in the Box clinic. They took xrays, doc said it looked like I had a fractured neck. He sent me up to Mission Memorial Hospital in Asheville for the CT scan. Radiologist said he thought I had a broken neck and needed emergency surgery, or else, I would be paralyzed. Got the MRI right then.
The second radiologist said there was no broken neck, and sent me home. I spent 14 scary hours in the hospital that day.
Still, I was in pretty rough shape. I had 11 visits to physical therapy. I missed 6 weeks of work. Had to go see my knee doc to make sure my titanium knee had not been knocked loose.
Glasses were broken in the wreck, had to buy new glasses for $600, eye doc said it looked like there was a bulge in my eye from the wreck. She made an emergency appointment for me at the eye clinic in Asheville the next day. I had to spend 3 hours at the eye clinic to make sure I wasn't having a stroke. The eye clinic cleared me but those tests cost $950.
Six months later my neck and knee still hurt like hell, I went and got more physical therapy. I am 63 years old and don't bounce as well as I used to.
So, considering the drunk gal was as guilty as she could be, in that, she was convicted of dui and causing the wreck, you might think that I got a healthy payday.
Well I didn't.
It turned out she had the minimum insurance that South Carolina mandates, which is $25K. I had to hire a lawyer and he cleaned her insurance policy out, but he got $8K. So I "cleared" $16K. Sounds pretty good. Also, once you clear out the insurance policy, the next thing you do is sue the offender personally. My lawyer got an agent to check her out and she didn't have 2 nickels to rub together. Single mom with 3 children, living in a rented trailer.
You start with 6 weeks missed pay, that is $7,000. Co-pays at every doctor or physical therapy visit, of which there were about 30, that was about a Grand. Not to mention car expenses for all those visits, about $700. Glasses, $600. Laptop was smashed, that was $500.
There were many more costs out of my pocket, I have been trying to forget this disaster to be honest with you and don't think about it any more. But, I had "cleared" about $3 Grand. Great. I wouldn't go through this nightmare again if you offered me $50 Grand.
But here is the frosting on the cake of doo-doo. Last week I got the final bill from Mission Memorial, I still owed them $2,700. Good God I thought this nightmare had ended a year ago.
I talked to my lawyer, and to a consumer helper outfit, they both told me that I owed the dough and ought to try to talk Mission Memorial down, but I had to pay. I talked the hospital down by 20 percent and paid them off with $2100 cash two days ago.
So, I "cleared" 900 bucks off of this wreck. Figuring all the hours I put in, I made about $4 an hour. You hear about people getting hundreds of thousands for "pain and suffering." Hell I know all about pain and suffering. I got 2 teeth knocked out playing high school football. Broke my ankle playing college soccer. Slashed my thigh for 30 stitches, cutting trees with a chain saw. 145 stitches in the forehead in high school, car wreck. There are many more injuries on my list but I will stop there. I know all about pain and suffering. If I were fairly compensated for the pain and suffering I endured in this wreck, we would start at $75 Grand, and go up from there.
I have had it. If any more medical providers come out of the woodwork demanding money, I will tell them to screw off! I have had it with this nightmare.
Comments
Merc
quote:Originally posted by calrugerfan
Do you have uninsured/underinsured coverage on your policy. It should kick it to make up the difference.
But I also left out, 12 visits to the chiropractor, copay was $60 per visit. $720, ca ching!
Also, I was paid $4200 for the Nissan, and I bought the closest comparable truck I could get, a 1998 Nissan, which cost $6,800. Another $2800 down the hole.
The nightmare keeps coming back to me. Honestly, if I added up all the costs from this wreck, I probably am at a negative balance right now.
It could have been worse.
Amen.
Glad you survived.
My wife had always wanted to go for a hot air balloon ride. Well, in 2009 she got her wish. She and a friend took a ride with a commercial balloon pilot. He landed so hard he shattered my wife's left leg. She had plates and screws installed and her health has deteriorated since that day. The A-Hole had no insurance. He flat lied to me.
I hired a lawyer and we chased him until last fall. I received his old balloon, basket, and burner as the settlement. I was able to sell it for $3000.00.
He moves on with his life and we suffer. One day, I truly hope he gets his just reward.
Lost wages plus lost money to co pays and bills.
We came out $6800 to the good.
360 days after we settled our lawyer calls and says we are being sued for not givingwor comp their cut of the pie.
It was her old job sueing us cause they had to pay it.
They also wanted legal fees and had payed a $10,000 retainer.
So $17,000 they wanted.
Turned out we DID give them their many at the settlement.
But the bosses wife spent the money and hated my wife and was trying to stick her with it.
So I guess these huge settlements you see the attorneys brag about are going after polices with Million dollar umbrella coverage and in the end we all pay for the clowns who sue while the attorneys are the only ones getting paid in the game. Why else do they run all these ads Call now before you call yo momma?
HAVE YOU BEEN HIT BY AN 18 WHEELER? CALL GOLDSTEIN AND SHYLOCK ATTORNEYS 1 800 SCREW YOU
These exist because truck companies have lots of money. The lawyers don't care if the trucking company is right or wrong, they will sue them because they have the money.
Take my little trucking company. We have a half million deductible. That is, if we are in a wreck and we lose $450K my headquarters doesn't even notify the insurance company, they just write a check.
I happen to know that Tyson Chicken, a much bigger company, has a $5 million deductible.
Now, you take my case. I did have a real good lawyer and I am happy with the service provided, plus I like the guy personally. If any of ya'll need a lawyer in Greenville SC his name is Ryan Montgomery.
But, I am lucky he would even take my case. He took in $9,333 and after that, the well had gone dry.
I don't know how many hours Ryan and his staff worked on the case and I'm sure anybody on this forum [except for the MDs of course] would be happy to work for that much, by the hour.
But, if the lawyer can get a case involving a big rig and get a third of a $250K settlement, my case looks like a joke.
Have ya'll noticed all the billboards
HAVE YOU BEEN HIT BY AN 18 WHEELER? CALL GOLDSTEIN AND SHYLOCK ATTORNEYS 1 800 SCREW YOU
I prefer the Law Firm of Dewey, Cheatum and Howe. They are an ethical group of folks.
A single mom of 3 kids, out at the bar getting drunk at midnight and then drag racing down I 85 at 105 mph. She was 32 years old. That is some seriously sociopathic behavior. Of course she wasn't injured, the drunk guy quite often walks away uninjured while the sober guy gets creamed in the wreck. Good news, however, her car was totalled.
But, she had Allstate car insurance so they would have bought her another car. One consolation is that her car insurance rates would have tripled, convicted of being drunk and causing a wreck.
Here I am, 2 1/2 years later and still dealing with this crap. Just had to shell out over 2 grand in hard earned truck driver cash to pay the damn hospital.
If, say, my lawyer would have agreed to sue her for, let's say, a lawyer's fee of $2 grand, I would have done it in a heart beat. I certainly would have won a judgement, this irresponsible *$##*#! probably wouldn't even have shown up in court, God knows, she couldn't have afforded a lawyer. Let a $20 K judgement hang over her head for the rest of her life.
I would have done it 2 years ago but I won't do it now. I know, in North Carolina the statute of limitation for a civil suit is 2 years. Don't know what it is in SC but I am not going to mess with it, I am trying to put it behind me.
And if another medical provider crawls out of the woodwork asking for more cash I am going to tell them to **** OFF! Jose the illegal Mexican shows up at the Mission Memorial ER, he gets treated for free. Billy the hillbilly, with no money or insurance, breaks his leg, he gets treated for free. And, to compensate, the hospital triples the charge on a hard working guy like me, because I have a job and insurance. Hospitals routinely fix their charges this way.
Let 'em ding my credit I don't care. I am a Dave Ramsey follower and I don't use credit anyway.
Sorry you got messed up-it's a *. I know cause it happened to us.
Totaled both vehicles. This was my Silverado.
Since the forty year old woman driving was charged with DUI, she wasn't answering any insurance questions. So my insurance paid a stipend for my truck and now I'm the proud owner of a car payment.
She was eventually convicted of DUI, failure to maintain control, couple other charges. Nice, but doesn't help me any.
She'll probably roll out of bed in a couple hours and get ready to gout partying. Hope she doesn't hurt anyone next time.
Sorry you weren't as lucky Allen. But I feel (some of) your pain.