In a Second, His Life Changed for the Worse : Accident: The $2.1 million awarded John Joseph Luz after a truck hit his motorcycle will ease but not solve the problems he suffers as the result of a severe head injury.

Every evening, John Joseph Luz thinks about his day and evaluates what he has accomplished. Would he pay himself for the work he has done?

For the past three years, the answer has been the same: No.

It took him three days to polish the brass fireplace utensils. Organizing the tools on the pegboard took several months. When he tried to clean the spark plugs in his car, he screwed up the engine.

Three years ago, Luz, then a 38-year-old tuna fisherman, was traveling 20 m.p.h. on his motorcycle when he was struck by a pickup truck driven by a Navy employee. Luz was thrown 50 feet, smashing his bare head on the pavement.

When Luz awoke from a 21-day coma, it became clear that he was brain-damaged. Because his balance is so shaky, people often think he is drunk. He can’t remember what he ate for his last meal. He cannot smell or taste. And he is prone to seizures. Luz is lucky to be alive, experts say. Luz says he is not so sure.

His medical expenses of $122,135 have sunk his family into debt. He cannot work. His wife, Sharon, has quit her job to care for him.

But this week, his luck seemed to rebound. In response to a suit filed two years ago by Luz against the U.S. government, a U.S. District Court judge awarded him $2.1 million and $300,000 to his wife for loss of consortium. Luz had sued the U.S. government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, a statute that allows the government to be sued for employees’ negligence. Because the Navy employee--James Weatherford, a civilian--was driving to a Navy meeting, the government was found liable for Weatherford’s negligence. Weatherford did not see Luz as he turned on Nimitz Boulevard in the 3000 block, said Craig Klein, Luz’s attorney.

Weatherford was negligent because “he failed to use ordinary care” in driving his pickup, made an illegal and unsafe left turn, and failed to yield the right-of-way to Luz’s motorcycle, Judge William P. Copple wrote in the ruling. Copple is a visiting Arizona judge who recently presided over proceedings in San Diego.

“No act or failure to act by Mr. Luz contributed to the accident in question, nor was he in any way negligent in the operation of the motorcycle,” Copple wrote.

The U.S. Department of Justice has 60 days to consider whether to appeal the judge’s verdict and the award, one of the largest for such a case in the San Diego area.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Jack Robinson said Thursday that he was surprised by the award. In Weatherford’s defense, Robinson had argued that Weatherford did not make a dangerous turn. He also argued that Luz should have been wearing brightly colored clothing and a helmet--although they were not required by law. Further, he told the court that Luz was driving too fast and should have had better brakes.

“Obviously, the United States would not have gone to trial if they didn’t feel it was appropriate to do so--we believe there was a valid defense,” Robinson said.

But Klein, Luz’s attorney, said the award was appropriate and much needed by the family.

“Unfortunately, the system is one that people who are injured have to fight tooth and nail to get what they justly are entitled to,” Klein said. “If we get money, Mr. Luz will be one of the lucky ones. But the plight of the head-injured is a huge problem that is growing. . . . As a society, we are poorly set up to deal with it.”

Each year, 500,000 Americans suffer head injuries; 100,000 of them die. Another 100,000 of them, like Luz, suffer severe impairments that prevent them from living independently. In San Diego County, more than 3,000 traumatic head injuries occur annually, according to the San Diego Head Injury Foundation.

“Traumatic care is improving so remarkably that we are saving many more people than we used to save before,” said Pat Marshall, foundation president. “But nobody ever returns to life exactly the way they knew it before. I hate to be grim, but it is pretty grim, darn it.”

Luz, now 42, cannot remember the accident that changed his life. In fact, these days, he cannot remember much. At a restaurant with friends, Luz kept looking for his soda on the table. He got exasperated, thinking that his friends had hidden it from him as a joke. Then his wife pointed out that he was holding the soda in his hand.

Sometimes he will leave his workshop in the garage one flight below his Point Loma home in search of a tool. He walks slowly, wobbling from side to side, weaving and swaying. But by the time he has arduously climbed the stairs to his home, he usually cannot remember what he wanted.

When he searches the house for his cigarettes, he forgets that he has stuffed them into his socks. But there are other more frightening memory lapses, and these explain why Sharon Luz stays home. One time, her husband, long accustomed to tinkering and fixing gadgets, was using a torch and turned to talk to his father-in-law. Forgetting that he held the lit torch in his hand, he singed the hair on his father-in-law’s arm.

Another time, when Luz was trying to light the furnace, he forgot about the gas and lit a cigarette. Sharon Luz, standing nearby, was able to extinguish the flame before any harm was done.

“I envisioned him blowing himself up and blowing up the house,” said Sharon Luz, who quit her job as a construction estimator to tend to her husband.

She tries to set up three tasks for him each day, such as watering the lawn or polishing utensils. But time passes very slowly for her husband.

Luz hails from a family of fishermen--his father and grandfather were both in that trade. Luz himself had been a fisherman since he was 16. He used to go out on trips that lasted up to 70 days--not so much because of the money, but because he liked that life, he said. Today, his balance is too precarious for him to board a boat. He misses the sea, the wind and the adventure.

“What I do in a day is what I could have done in an hour or two before the accident. I am slow, real slow--it’s pathetic,” said Luz, who had also doubled as an engineer on the boats.

John and Sharon Luz live in the modest Point Loma house in which his grandmother lived. The couple’s daughters, ages 20 and 23, no longer live with them, but drop by frequently. Sharon’s parents live in the downstairs apartment of the house.

Though Luz used to repair every appliance in the home when it broke, he no longer does. Now he limits himself to tinkering with the gadgets that won’t matter if he ruins them. Though he tries to order his life, time weighs heavily. He watches the morning news on television and sits on the couch for three hours thinking about the rest of the day.

“I think, ‘What am I going to do today?’ ” he said. “Then I think, ‘What can I do today?’ ”

What once brought him joy no longer does. He likes to eat fried chicken--not because he can taste it but because he can remember how it once tasted. His grandchildren now make him anxious because they are small and always seem to be moving around. Since he and his wife live on $893 a month in Social Security, they can afford to go out only rarely. And Luz, self-conscious about his walking and his memory lapses, doesn’t like to leave home.

With the court-ordered award, Luz will be able to take outpatient physical therapy, which costs about $250 daily. Luz said the therapy helped, but he stopped going when the insurance money ran out.

When Sharon Luz shops for groceries now, she carefully prices every item. To them, the money will also mean she could relax what has become her stringent shopping rules. Her eyes brighten as she speaks of taking a possible vacation--something the couple has not done since the accident. And they might fix the leaky roof and the timer on their microwave oven.

Though a physical therapist advised Luz to tell people he has suffered a head injury, he is not comfortable doing that.

“I ain’t going to cop to being handicapped. You don’t want people feeling sorry for you or looking down on you,” he said. Instead, he has developed a wry sense of humor and jokes at his own memory lapses or tottering.

Still, Luz is bitter about the driver of the car that crashed into him.

“He ruined my life, he might as well have killed me. I would have been better off,” Luz said. “He just put me, in--umm, what’s the word? Torment? I can’t do anything I want.”