Paralyzed teen sues Ford, Firestone
His suit and that of another Minnesota family are believed to be among the state’s
first in the tide of legal action related to rollovers.
Published: Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities
Author: Pam Louwagie; Staff Writer
Date: August 8, 2001
Sheryl Burrows still cries when she thinks about what the accident did to her son.
She remembers seeing the deer’s muscular back as it darted in front of their Ford Explorer while her family drove home from Brainerd. She, her husband, Randy, and their three children were thrown sideways as the vehicle swerved to miss it, then the horizon turned upside down as they rolled into a ditch with a blown tire.
Adam, 17, sat seat-belted with his head hanging out a window. He could talk but he couldn’t feel anything.
“They all climbed out the windows. I stayed in the car to hold him,” Burrows said.
The Maple Grove family blames Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. and Ford Motor Co. for the accident last Easter eve that crushed Adam’s spinal cord, making him a quadriplegic. Adam, a former high school soccer star, filed suit against the companies and Tousley Ford on Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court.
His case and another served this week are believed to be among the first in Minnesota to join the nationwide slew of legal action against Firestone and Ford for rollover accidents.
Dick and Vange Anderson of Solway, Minn., also served the companies and a local dealer with lawsuits, after their 17-year-old daughter, Amy, was killed in a rollover last July, said their attorney, who also represents Adam Burrows.
The Burrows’ tires, Wilderness ATs that were on the vehicle when they bought it less than a year before the accident, are one of the models that Ford offered to replace this spring, saying it considers them unsafe. Firestone blames Ford, saying the automaker has ignored questions about the safety of the Explorer.
St. Paul attorney Greg McEwen and Arkansas lawyer Tab Turner, who has handled more than 170 rollover cases nationwide, blame both companies, arguing that the tires were made for the vehicles, advertised and promoted together.
First trial to begin
The first widespread Firestone tire recall happened a year ago.
While both Firestone and Ford have settled many of the claims against them for rollovers, the first Firestone trial resulting from such a suit is scheduled to begin next week.
Spokespeople from both companies said their condolences go out to those injured in accidents and their families.
Ford spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes said safety data from the National Highway Safety Administration verify that the Explorer is “one of the safest vehicles on the road.”
While claims about the Explorer and tires together haven’t gone to trial, she said the Explorer’s design has been tried in two cases, and both juries found the vehicle to be safe.
Bridgestone/Firestone said in a statement that “accidents happen for a number of reasons. What specifically happened here will be addressed in the judicial process.”
A spokesman for Tousley Ford’s parent company declined to comment on pending litigation. Managers at Bob Lowth Ford in Bemidji, the dealership named in the Andersons’ suit, couldn’t be reached to comment.
Although most problems have come in Southern states where hot asphalt is partly blamed, Turner said he has seen more cases popping up in northern states lately. Publicity may be playing a role in people’s tendency to report the problems, he said.
Turner, who has earned a national reputation for his expertise in litigation involving sport utility vehicle rollovers, turns down cases where other factors such as alcohol may have played a role, he said.
He agreed to work with McEwen because the cases seemed classic, he said.
“The tires are not supposed to come apart as you’re driving down the road,” Turner said. “These are poster children for the present problem consumers are faced with in this country.”
Similarities in vehicles
In both Minnesota cases, photographs show the rear driver’s side tire shredded - the same tire that has failed slightly more often than others, according to reports.
In Amy Anderson’s case, a Firestone Wilderness AT tire blew, McEwen said. She was riding along a gravel road with a 15-year-old friend who was driving with a learner’s permit. It was July 3 and the two girlfriends had cleaned up the friend’s yard to prepare for a July 4 party.
The girls were going about a half-mile to pick wildflowers in a country meadow when the 1993 Explorer rolled.
Amy, a somewhat shy teen who loved animals and was beginning to emerge as a promising choir singer, died of head and neck injuries, her parents said. According to an accident report, she wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
The day after the accident, a neighbor told the Andersons that he’d heard reports of other Explorers rolling over.
“It was just astonishing to us when we looked into it that many vehicles had the same characteristics,” Dick Anderson said.
Photographs of the two Minnesota vehicles show other similarities, with both smashed mostly in the front passenger corner. Accident reports also show the vehicles traveled similar paths. McEwen said they swerved to the right, then a tire blew when the drivers tried to steer back to the left.
“We would like to see this Ford vehicle pulled off the road,” Dick Anderson said. “I definitely believe there is a stability issue. I believe the tire blowing had an impact.”
Though the girls were traveling on a gravel road, Anderson said that the gravel was firm and that he doesn’t believe the conditions caused the crash.
In the Burrows’ case, the crash happened on a clear night, on a dry Hwy. 169 between Princeton and Milaca.
The family was heading toward the Twin Cities after having dinner with Sheryl Burrows’ parents in Brainerd.
Four of the five were wearing seat belts.
Adam, now 18, has spent more than a year recuperating, including 10 months in rehabilitation at Courage Center in Golden Valley.
It’s a life-altering change for a teen who excelled in soccer. He made the sophomore team as an eighth-grader and became the leading scorer. Now he probably will never play the sport again. He needs help going to the bathroom and turning over in bed. He went to his senior prom this spring with his parents as chaperones so they could help him.
Still, he maintains a positive attitude, though he says some days are better than others.
“I pretty much take it one day at a time,” he said.
The Burrows added onto their house to accommodate their son’s wheelchair, including an elevator to the second floor. They bought a van that will carry his wheelchair and they want
to buy a vehicle equipped for him to drive someday.
Still, they say, it’s unlikely that anything will bring his agility back.
“He’ll always need care,” Sheryl Burrows said. “This is the worst thing I could have imagined."
Copyright 2001 - Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities