Jury awards damages to Baker youth badly injured in ’03 accident

Seven years ago in the sleepy desert town of Baker, two 10-year-old boys approached a teenager and asked to hitch a ride into town. The boys shuffled onto the bed of the teenager’s truck, and the truck sped onto the freeway.

Moments later, one of the boys, Dillon Elkins, leapt off the truck and hit his head on the asphalt. He sustained massive brain injuries that left him a spastic quadriplegic, unable to speak, walk, or eat anything except through a gastric tube.

Last week, a Barstow jury awarded a $32.2-million verdict in a lawsuit against the driver, who was 18 at the time. Dillon’s attorney contended the driver, a high school football star, saw a passing California Highway Patrol officer and yelled at the boy to jump, fearing he could get in trouble if authorities spotted the children in the back.

The driver testified at trial that the boys sneaked onto the truck without his knowledge and that he never told them to jump, according to Ricardo Echeverria, Dillon’s attorney.

The jury found the driver 80% at fault and Dillon 20% at fault for the accident, meaning the boy’s family will receive 80% of the $32.2 million. The jury deliberated for about two days at the end of a three-week trial in Barstow, Echeverria said.

The driver’s attorney declined to discuss the case.

Sherry Setter, Dillon’s mother, said she was relieved the trial was over and that her son, now 17, will be able to get necessary medical care, including therapy twice a week. She quit her waitressing job to care for Dillon around the clock.

“I feel like he’s been in limbo for 6 1/2 years,” said Setter, a mother of five. “He’ll finally get some things he needs.”

In the fall of 2003, on the afternoon of the accident, Dillon went to the homecoming football game at the town’s only high school. After the game, he asked Robert Murchison, who had scored a touchdown that night, for a ride.

Murchison maintained that he said no because the cab of the truck was full, and that Dillon and his friend slipped onto the truck bed on their own. Dillon’s attorney contended in court papers that witnesses said Murchison told the boys he would honk or yell if he saw a cop, and they should jump out.

On California 127 heading north, just that happened: When they saw a highway patrol car going the opposite direction, Murchison yelled at the boys to jump, Echeverria said.

At the hospital, doctors told Setter the boy might not live through the night. He lingered in a coma, then awoke three weeks later. He looked like the same healthy boy, but was unable to do anything but smile at his mother, Setter recalled.

victoria.kim@latimes.com