Part 1 of the “Victim of circumstance” series was about Jerry’s life now, what unfolded the night of the crash and Derek Brown’s history as a reckless driver and his brushes with the law.

Part 2 examined the relationship between Jerry and his fiancee and caretaker, Minnie Blue Bond, as well as the legal battle, Jerry’s injuries and his prospects for the future.

Spinal cord injury leaves Gaston with few options
Aug. 28, 2006

Snap a pencil in half, and you’re left with two pieces of wood with a lead core running through the center. Firmly bind the two pieces back together, and there’s a good chance you can continue using the pencil with no trouble.

Now imagine your spinal column with the spinal cord running through the center – something like a pencil with a piece of licorice inside.

Had Jerry Gaston’s vertebrae simply fractured as a result of the crash in May 2002, he might have walked away. But in his case, three bones in his neck broke and dislocated from each other, stretching and pulling and putting pressure on his spinal cord.

Doctors rushed to stabilize the injury when Gaston got to the hospital. They used a device that applied traction and allowed them to realign the bone to prevent further damage to the cord. His surgeon, Dr. Stephen Pineda, then performed surgery to repair and stabilize the fracture with a series of plates, screws and rods.

Despite doctors’ efforts, the damage was permanent and irreversible. Gaston lost function of everything the spinal cord controls from his neck on down, including arm and leg movement, use of his chest and abdominal muscles, and control over his bowel, bladder and sexual functions.

If the injury had been higher, as in the case of deceased actor Christopher Reeve, Gaston also would not have been able to move his head and neck and would have been unable to breathe without a ventilator.

“It’s devastating. The spinal cord will not regenerate. It’s not like bone, which will regenerate,” Pineda said. “When you have a dislocated neck, we know that the spinal cord is undergoing continuous damage.”

Gaston was hospitalized for two months as he tried to recover from the injury and subsequent complications, such as persistent pneumonia. He underwent two weeks of physical therapy and rehabilitation at the hospital, then went home.

Initially, he could only shrug his shoulders. In September 2002, he regained some use of his lower extremities, so he returned to the hospital the following February for additional rehabilitation. He also regained some use of his upper extremities. He was sent home again later that month but continued therapy as an outpatient.

He has enough use of his right arm that he can operate his electric wheelchair, and he can sometimes feed himself. He is able to stand for a second or two with support, but that’s it.

“He has some nerves that are working, and that’s wonderful,” Pineda said. “But if there’s no functional outcome from it … scientifically, it gives a sense of hope, but what can you do with it?”

Gaston will require round-the-clock help for the rest of his life. It is unknown how much it will cost in the course of his lifetime for his family to care for him, keep him comfortable and stave off complications from the injury. Estimates by a rehabilitation consultant range between $4.7 million and $10.3 million.

That includes the costs of doctors’ visits and evaluations, visiting nurses, someone to make house repairs and care for the lawn, a van and van maintenance, home renovations, wheelchairs, wheelchair batteries, bedside toilets, catheters, gloves, tissues, cotton swabs, nebulizers to help him breathe, medicine for everything from pain and anxiety to allergies and indigestion, and dozens of other items for his physical, psychological, social and safety needs.

His medical expenses amounted to $414,287 from the time of the crash up to when a civil lawsuit he filed against the offending driver, the city of Springfield and two police officers went to trial.

Pineda said patients like Gaston often go through a variety of phases after they become paralyzed, from the “what do I do now?” phase to the “why me” and the “what if” phases.

“He was depressed. Anybody would be depressed. It’s quite a change,” he said. “Everything is different. Going to the bathroom – you can’t do it without getting somebody to help you. Making a phone call – you’ve got to get somebody to dial the phone, put it to your ear and when you’re done, hang it up for you.

“All the things that were simple before now are becoming an obstacle.”

Gaston’s recovery prospects are few. Advances in medical and computer technology, such as vans that can be driven by voice commands or spinal cord bypasses, could improve his life, but whether he’ll be able to take advantage of them remains to be seen.

He could be too old by the time they become available on the market.

“Right now, for a guy in his late 40s, the future is very limited, other than being an experimental person for the next generation to come,” Pineda said.

Gaston’s injury
Aug. 28, 2006

Spinal cord injuries to the cervical nerves most often result in quadriplegia, paralysis from the neck down. Damage to the thoracic nerves and below, often result in paraplegia, meaning hand control is not affected. In Jerry Gaston’s case, spinal injury occurred in the cervical region, around vertebrae C2, C3 and C4, causing him initially to lose function of his arms, legs, chest and abdominal muscles. He has regained a limited amount of movement in his extremities.

• Skull
• Spinal cord
• Vertebral body
• Intervertebral disc
• Dura (thecal sac)
• Spinous process
• Conus medullaris
• Cauda equina
• Cervical nerves
• Head and neck
• Diaphram
• Deltoids, biceps
• Wrist extenders
• Triceps
• Hand
• Thoracic nerves
• Chest muscles
• Abdominal muscles
• Lumbar nerves
• Leg muscles
• Sacral nerves
• Bowel and bladder
• Sexual function

Gaston suffers defeat even with $24.5 million verdict
Aug. 28, 2006

A Sangamon County jury in March agreed that Jerry Gaston, an innocent victim of a car crash, deserved compensation for his suffering and money to pay his medical bills.

Consequently, a lawsuit filed by Gaston against Derek Brown and two Springfield police officers who had been following Brown’s car the night of the crash came down to this:

The jury awarded Gaston $24.5 million – the largest verdict in Sangamon County Circuit Court history and enough money to take care of him and his family for the rest of his life.

But in a heart-wrenching twist for Gaston and his fiancee, Minnie Blue-Bond, the jury ruled that Brown alone was responsible for the crash and that only he was liable to pay Gaston the $24.5 million.

Brown had no driver’s license or auto insurance when the accident took place in 2002. He sits in jail, with no income and no assets and – if his driving and criminal records are any indication – few prospects of either in the future.

The city and the two officers were cleared of any liability.

Gaston and Blue-Bond sat in stunned disbelief after the verdict was read.

“I was shocked. I was crushed. I didn’t have any hope left, and I still don’t have any hope left,” Blue-Bond said.

They have never seen a dime of the award. Neither have Orrin Holman and Casey Joy, other crash victims who also were awarded compensation in the suit – $75,000 for Holman and $6,500 for Joy.

Trial arguments and the resulting verdict came down to one primary issue: Were the two Springfield police officers, Chris Stout and April Smiddy, pursuing Brown in violation of police department rules, and did they thereby cause the crash?

Had the jury found they violated the rules, city taxpayers could have been on the hook for millions of dollars.

According to the department’s general orders on vehicle pursuits, officers can initiate pursuits only when they think someone in the fleeing vehicle was involved in a forcible felony.

“Pursuits for traffic offenses, property crimes, whether felony or misdemeanor, or when the suspect flees for unknown reasons are prohibited,” the orders state. “In choosing whether to initiate a pursuit, or to allow its continuation, officers will consider the degree of risk to which the officer exposes himself and others in so doing.”

The officers said in depositions that they had no reason to believe Brown had committed any crime other than running a red light at 15th Street and South Grand Avenue.

Another point of contention was whether and when the officers activated their lights and sirens.

Ultimately, the jury determined that Brown, not the officers, was responsible for his actions and the resulting crash.

The city paid $255,000 to an outside law firm, Brown, Hay and Stephens, to represent it and the officers in the suit. Thomas Schanzle-Haskins of Brown, Hay and Stephens said after the verdict that, while Gaston’s injuries are a tragedy, they were not caused by the officers.

“These are two very fine Springfield Police Department officers who were doing a good job in what they were doing the night of the accident,” he said. “I’m happy to see them vindicated, and I believe the jury’s verdict put 100 percent of the blame where it belonged.”

Bruce Beeman, attorney for Gaston, Holman and Joy, on May 30 filed a notice to appeal the civil case. Oral arguments could take place as early as December.

While the money from the verdict would be a big help to those who were injured, Holman said, the case isn’t about money.

“The moral of that whole story is the police should have let Derek Brown go instead of endangering people,” he said. “Every time they’re on the east side and they see (Gaston), they got to live with that.”

The trial was the first time Casey Joy and Michael Perkins – both of whom also were injured in the crash and sued – had ever seen Gaston. They were shocked by his condition.

“I got really emotional when I saw him,” Perkins said, recalling how Gaston and Blue-Bond sat through every day of the trial and how she tended to his every need in the courtroom.

The proceedings were tough on Joy, too. Each day after court adjourned, he said, he rode the bus to his church on Jackson Street, went inside the silent building and sat alone.

“I was sad – not for me, because I’m all right. I was sad for the man in the wheelchair and to see his face when they said it was 100 percent Derek Brown’s fault,” he said. “If I didn’t get anything, I think they at least should have given that man in the wheelchair something.”

Of all the people who attended parts of the eight-day trial, the two Gaston and Blue-Bond most wanted to hear from disappointed them.

Mayor Tim Davlin cleared his entire schedule and sat in on every day of the trial to show how important the case was to the city.

“I knew in my heart that we were innocent of that, and I felt like they were suing for the wrong reasons,” Davlin said. “If you’re suing for sympathy and suing someone with the deep pockets, we just don’t have it. We do not have that kind of money.

“So I felt like sitting there, it would send a message that they’re not suing a big corporation, they’re suing me, and I take it personally. I thought it was the right thing to do to show I had interest in this case.”

Blue-Bond said the mayor did not speak to her and Gaston, other than to say good morning each day, until after the verdict was read and the high-fives among attorneys in the courtroom were over. She said the mayor reached for Gaston’s hand and said, “I’m sorry it didn’t go the way you wanted it to.”

It wasn’t the apology they’d hoped for.

“It was one of the saddest things. It was everything I could do to keep the tears back when I walked over to him after the trial was over,” Davlin said.

“I couldn’t talk to them during the trial, other than to say ‘hi’ every day. We lived together for a week and a half. You feel terrible because the guy was wronged by a thug. … Unfortunately, the city of Springfield wasn’t the responsible party.”

No one from the police department ever apologized to the couple, either.

“A verbal apology wouldn’t mean anything to me at this point,” Blue-Bond said. “I’m very bitter.”

Brown, the couple said, never uttered a word to them during either the civil trial or during his criminal trial for the crash, not even when they all found themselves riding together in an elevator at the county building.

Brown’s behavior during the trial shocked many of those who witnessed it. He’d served three years in prison for the crash and did not have an attorney represent him in the civil case. He repeatedly defied the judge’s orders to testify in the lawsuit. One such exchange went like this:

Beeman: Did you ever say in your deposition that you knew from the time that you went – the police went through the stoplight …

Brown: Why do we keep going through this, man?

Circuit Judge Patrick Kelley: Just bear with us, Mr. Brown.

Brown: I’m saying I done did three years for this thing. Ain’t nothing else to talk about.

Judge: Well, hopefully, this will put an end to it for you. Answer the question.

Brown: There is nothing to talk about, Your Honor. Nothing.

Judge: There’s a lot to talk about, Mr. Brown. Answer Mr. Beeman’s questions.

Brown: I ain’t going to answer. Then we’re just going to sit here. I got nothing but time. We can sit here.

Gaston said it doesn’t bother him anymore that Brown behaved the way he did at the trial and that he never apologized about the crash. If he had a chance, though, he’d ask Brown where he was trying to go that night.

“If he talked to me, I’d talk to him. But he doesn’t, so I’m not going to say anything,” Gaston said.

Damages awarded to …
Aug. 28, 2006

Jerry Gaston

• $3,000,000 for pain and suffering
• $414,287.44 for past medical

- expenses

• $10,362,863 for present cash value of all future medical expenses
• $10,362,863 for loss of a normal life
• $100,000 for disfigurement resulting

- from the injury

• $233,272 for projected lost earnings

Total: $24,473,285.44

Orrin Holman

• $63,308.77 for pain and suffering
• $3,816.23 for past medical expenses
• $7,815.00 for lost earnings

Total: $74,940

Casey M. Joy

• $2,443.78 for pain and suffering
• $2,443.77 for disfigurement resulting

- from injury

• $1,612.45 for past medical expenses

Total: $6,500

Daily struggle / Accident destroys more than just Gaston’s life
Aug. 28, 2006
Minnie Blue-Bond’s heart went cold when she got the phone call from doctors in Springfield.

Her fiance, Jerry Gaston, was hanging on to life by a thread after being badly injured in a car crash caused by a man fleeing from police.

Minnie was 700 miles away, visiting family in Mississippi.

“He’s stable, but it’s shaky,” she heard the doctor say. “Touch and go.”

“Do I need to fly?” she asked. He said no, that it wasn’t necessary but that she should hurry.

Minnie told Jerry’s 8-month-pregnant daughter, his brother and his mother what had happened. A caravan of family left at 11 p.m. that Sunday to get to Springfield the next day.

Jerry was in a coma when they arrived. He hadn’t shown much response to doctors and nurses caring for him. That changed when Minnie walked into the room.

“I called his name, and he did open his eyes. The doctors were freaking out,” she recalled. “Jerry just looked at me. He couldn’t do anything else.

“And when his mom walked up to the bed and she touched his forehead and called his name, he opened his eyes again. So the doctor knew he was actually responding to us.”

Jerry was fighting. Minnie looked at him in that hospital room, hooked up to machines and monitors. Surrounding his head was a halo, a medical device used to stabilize the neck vertebrae.

The more details she gleaned from doctors, the more she understood that Jerry was going to be a quadriplegic and that being his partner would take on a whole new meaning.

***

It’s not really surprising that Jerry opened his eyes when Minnie spoke his name. The story of their love goes all the way back to Calhoun, Miss., where they grew up.

They went to grade school together, and Minnie remembers Jerry as being a somewhat naughty kid.

“Oh, I was pretty terrible,” he admitted. “You name it, I would do it, you know?”

They lost track of each other in the 1960s, when schools in the area began integrating. Life went on, and each got married and had children. Minnie divorced twice and eventually moved to Springfield. She worked for the Illinois Department of Public Aid for 15 years. Jerry divorced and remarried.

Although she didn’t realize it right away, her cousin lived next to Jerry in Calhoun. She and Jerry rekindled their friendship as adults during one of her visits to Mississippi about 1996. They talked on the phone, and she would go to Mississippi when she had the chance. After a year of dating, Jerry made a trip to St. Louis to visit his sister.

“He came up to her house, and he called me and said, ‘I’m in St. Louis – do you want to come down and spend the day with us?’ I did, and one thing led to another,” Minnie recalled with a laugh. “He went back home, called me back and said, ‘I’m moving up there.’ He asked me if he could move, and I told him yeah.”

Jerry clearly remembers what attracted him to Minnie.

“The way she was lookin’ and the way she was talkin’,” he said with a grin.

His personality is what caused Minnie to take a second look at him.

“I watched him with his nieces and nephews, and I knew I had kids and stuff. I was already a foster parent and a day-care provider,” she said. “I was basically looking for someone that had the outgoing personality that could mix with children and the parents. And someone that I could feel safe with and have around my children.”

Their brick ranch-style house on Paul Street is bursting with children. Minnie has three adopted children, ages 13, 7 and 6; three foster children, 15, 14 and 12; and an 18-month-old boy who was born to the oldest foster child. The younger kids share a bedroom on the main floor, and the older ones sleep in the basement, where there are two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Minnie also baby-sits for family and friends, and other foster children she’s raised regularly stream in and out of the house to visit her and help take care of Jerry.

Minnie, 50, also has three adult children, all of whom live in Springfield, and Jerry has three adult children in Mississippi.

The couple talked about getting married in June 2002. Jerry never legally divorced from his second wife, who lives in Mississippi and whom he hasn’t been with in 11 years. He hired a lawyer and planned to get a quick divorce while he and Minnie were there visiting family that year. Then they would get married.

But the crash happened, and their lives screeched to a halt. He and his wife have never divorced, and he and Minnie have never married.

***

Yet Minnie remains firmly planted at Jerry’s side.

She has no legal obligation to stay. They barely scrape by financially. She must care for the seven youngsters as well as tend to Jerry. Lifting, bathing, changing, feeding, grooming, medicating – it’s an endless round-the-clock commitment that a weaker woman would have abandoned by now.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re married, because when we moved in together we kind of took a vow that that was what we were going to do further down the road when we could,” she said. “Now, there’s no way I could marry him because I can’t financially take care of him.”

Minnie vowed early on that she would never put Jerry in a nursing home. She believes he needs his family and that she is the only one who can provide the one-on-one care he deserves. Her son, Carlos, goes to the house every day to help Minnie get Jerry up in the morning and help with some light housekeeping.

Minnie says she couldn’t do it without Carlos’ help.

“I take care of him because I want to, not because I have to,” Minnie said. “I don’t want to see him go to a nursing home because I’ve worked in nursing homes, and I know what they’re like.”

She has her own health problems to contend with: lupus, congestive heart failure, arthritis and back pain. She often is exhausted, and depression sometimes sets in. Some days she can’t bear to get out of bed.

In many ways, she was a victim of the car crash, too.

When she feels overwhelmed, she goes to her basement laundry room where she can listen to gospel music tapes, wash and fold clothes, and pray. She doesn’t go far because, as she says, her life is there in the house with Jerry.

Does leaving ever cross her mind?

“Yeah, it has,” she said quietly. “Especially if I’m here and the kids are here and I’m still pushing to go and do and trying to make a life for him, it gets really complicated. It gets congested a lot.

“Especially when every chance you make, something is falling through. Nothing is actually ever bright for you. You get depressed.”

She copes with the help of God and her family.

“God, that’s my strength,” Minnie said. “Every time I get to a point where I feel like I can’t do this, I can’t make it anymore, he’ll send someone along to help me or send someone along to show me I’m not the only one having burdens.

“Immediately, I’ll recognize what he’s doing, and I’ll go, ‘I’m going to shut up. I’m sorry. I’m going to do better. I’m going to stop complaining.’”

Minnie’s relationship with Jerry has changed, though their love for each other has not.

They sleep in the same bed, discuss child-rearing and family, pray and eat meals together.

“I still love him, and I think he still loves me,” Minnie said, turning to look at Jerry dozing in his wheelchair. “It’s a lot more kind of yak-yak at each other than it used to be. It used to be like that maybe every so often. Now it’s like every other day.

“But we kind of … he goes to his corner or his room, and I’ll go to the other part of the house and do something or play on the computer.”

There are good days. The children bring joy into their lives, and there are family gatherings, occasional trips to Mississippi and a brief summer vacation to Six Flags in St. Louis. Friends regularly drop in and out of the house.

One thought continues to trouble Minnie, though.

“Right now,” she said, “I am his everything. I’m his caretaker. What happens to him when I can no longer do it?”