Valerie Piro, who is recovering from a Saturday, January 12 car accident that left her paralyzed, is suing the Department of Education (DOE), the City of New York, Stuyvesant High School, Race walking Coach Erin Taylor, Ford Motor Company, TRW Automotive and Avis Rent-A-Car System, LLC, for 300 million dollars in damages. Piro and the rest of the race walking team were on their way to a meet at Dartmouth College when the Ford E-350 van was overturned, leaving the passengers injured.
“Ford manufactures the vehicle, Avis rented it and TRW makes the seatbelt,” the student’s father, Alfred Piro, said.
Taylor, who drove the van, is being held accountable for not receiving proper authorization from Principal Stanley Teitel and the DOE for the field trip. Taylor had sent out parental consent forms to all of the students, but had not asked for permission from Teitel to go on the trip.
Piro, who was wearing her seatbelt while in the van, was partially ejected out of the car’s window when it left the highway and rolled over into the median. Piro’s lawyers said that the van had been missing its side air bags, which, if present, could have prevented Piro’s injury.
Piro’s lawyers said that Avis should not have rented the van in the first place due to its defective nature. However, according to the description of the Ford E-350 on the Ford website, the vehicle does not include side airbags.
“Our sympathy goes out to victims of this tragic accident. The Ford E-350 is proven to be a very safe vehicle when operated properly,” a Ford official is quoted as saying in “Paralyzed Stuyvesant H.S. student sues Ford, city for $300 million,” a Daily News article by Carrie Melago.
Teitel and a DOE representative declined to comment.
Valerie Piro is still recovering from the accident. After residing in the New York University Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine for five months, she was transferred to the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.
“Valerie was very ill when she went to Rusk,” Alfred Piro said. “It was more of a care facility, whereas Kennedy Krieger is more focused on spinal cord injury recovery.”
Valerie Piro spent a month at Kennedy Krieger, where she was given therapy, and is currently living at home.
“She has hospital bills, which are very expensive to pay, that will only increase after time,” Fredric Eisenberg, Valerie Piro’s lawyer, said.
“As much as I would like to not use a wheelchair, I’m pretty much confined to one,” Valerie Piro said. “If all does not go well, I will be stuck in a crappy loaner hospital chair. It has been taking the wheelchair company four months to get me a normal chair. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Valerie Piro successfully completed her junior year classes, including three Advanced Placement courses, while in the hospital and is returning to Stuyvesant as a senior. Although she will be using a wheelchair, Valerie Piro is not worried about how she will travel within the building.
“The school is wheelchair accessible,” she said. “Thank goodness for the elevators. Just as long as the elevators don’t break, I should be able to get around.”
2 responses so far ↓
1 Anon Y. Mous // Sep 14, 2008 at 6:24 am
Suing Ford, Avis, and TRW makes sense. However, I just think that suing the school, DOE, and the coach is unnecessary. Assuming Tietel/DOE approved the trip, which I believed they would have done anyways, it would have not prevented the accident in any case. As for suing the coach: it is an absurd notion to blame her, as it is to the best of our knowledge she was not under the influence, drunk, or anything similar to that. It was an accident, and I don’t believe Erin Taylor meant harm for her own team.
I am outraged at the notion that people would do such things.
2 Paul Czyz // Sep 23, 2008 at 8:18 pm
^ Are you kidding me? Suing Ford, Avis and TRW seems logical? Companies that make millions of products and transactions a year and one accident like this warrants what were hearing about? The econoline forms the backbone of our country’s passenger and freight transport and has barely any more safety concerns than smaller vehicles except for rollover due to its high center of gravity, thats why you dont get into one of these if all youve driven in your life was a toyota camry or the like.
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