Council OKs $19-Million Personal Injury Payout

The City Council on Tuesday approved the largest personal injury settlement it has ever paid: $19 million to the family of a woman who was permanently disabled after a city maintenance truck slammed into several cars on the Hollywood Freeway.

Carol Adkins, a 44-year-old nursing teacher, remains in a “post-comative” condition, fed intravenously and able to communicate only by blinking.

Doctors believe she has limited awareness. Her medical bills are $30,000 per month.

For Adkins’ brother, daughters and mother, who are helping to care for her in their native Jacksonville, Fla., news of the council action was a relief, assurance that Adkins’ medical bills will be covered for the rest of her life.

“We are glad it is over because now we can do some things medically that we have wanted to do,” said Richard Birt, Adkins’ brother.

City employee Louis C. Gysin was driving a four-ton crane truck southbound on the Hollywood Freeway near Universal Center Drive on March 5, 1998, when, investigators believe, he fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of his truck.

The truck plowed through the center divider, becoming airborne before it slammed into a van, killing the driver, Roger Randall, and then coming to rest on Adkins’ rented car, pinning her inside.

Gysin had limited memory of what happened, but denied falling asleep. The California Highway Patrol found that fatigue and an overloaded truck contributed to the accident.