El Segundo, Paralyzed Man Settle Suit for $3.5 Million

Nearly five years after an accident at a party left a teen-ager paralyzed from the neck down, the city of El Segundo has agreed to a $3.5-million settlement of his lawsuit alleging negligence by paramedics.

Michael Orejel, 24, of Inglewood, claimed that El Segundo paramedics examined him after an 18-foot fall from an apartment, but were negligent in telling his friends to take the unconscious Orejel upstairs and let him “sleep it off.”

Orejel was paralyzed when he awoke the next morning, and is confined to a wheelchair.

Orejel’s claim in the suit in Torrance Superior Court was that paramedics concluded “he was just drunk, but otherwise uninjured,” and failed to take him to a hospital or call a hospital emergency room to get guidance, said his attorney, Antony Stuart.

The city maintained that Orejel’s apparent inebriation was not a factor in the paramedics’ actions.

Paramedics “found he was uninjured in their thorough field exam . . . . They found no reason to hospitalize or treat him,” said attorney Thomas J. Feeley, who represented the city.

In agreeing to the settlement, the city did not admit blame, he said.

“It is a big relief to have the case ended,” Orejel said from his home Monday.

The money will make it possible to obtain proper care and equipment, he said, including a van for transportation, and to purchase a house to share with his common-law wife and their 3-year-old daughter.

Orejel had been a deliveryman for a customs brokerage company at Los Angeles International Airport.

Orejel was attending a birthday party and fell from the balcony of an Imperial Avenue apartment, where he was drinking with other guests on May 18, 1985, Stuart said. Paramedics were called when Orejel was found unconscious on a grassy hill beneath the balcony.

Stuart said that Orejel fractured his spine in the fall and that damage to the spinal cord happened because paramedics failed to discover the injury. Orejel was paralyzed because he was “moved unprofessionally by other party-goers,” which happened as a direct result of his not being “immobilized by paramedics” and taken to a hospital.

The city, however, said it is not known how Orejel became paralyzed and they disputed that he fell from the balcony.

Orejel will receive $2 million in cash and monthly payments of $7,500 for the rest of his life, Stuart said. The city will buy a $1.5-million annuity to cover the payments. The city’s insurance will cover the payments, except for the $50,000 deductible as part of its liability coverage, Feeley said.