“Renata” was always tired. As a second year associate at a big law firm in the city, it was fairly typical for her to log 80 hours a week at the office. When going home late at night, she didn’t want to walk three blocks to the mass transit station, wait alone for one of the infrequent trains, and then hike another quarter mile to her apartment.
The doctor had explained the “routine” endoscopy procedure to “Marissa” (not a real person) and her mother thoroughly, sounding almost cheerful about it. “You’ll be able to go home later that afternoon,” he had said. Marissa, who had been suffering from painful stomach discomfort for weeks, listened and nodded.
“Janie” knew her children had saved her life, but she debated whether she would ever tell them that. They had not been able to save their father, but that wasn’t their fault. They hadn’t even been there. You don’t bring your kids on date night. It had been more than a year since “Janie” (not a real person) and her husband had enjoyed a date night. Too often, her husband wound up having to work over the weekend. That fateful Friday, though, he was off.
His job with a traveling work crew sometimes took “Dominic” away from home for days or even weeks at a time, but his family accepted that. The railroad paid well and had a competitive benefits package. Some weeks were harder for the family than others, of course, but Dominic was home most weekends. Most of the time, that was enough. Until the week that Dominic didn’t come home at all.
The first time “Ted” was dressed down by his new, younger manager at the large insurance company where he’d worked for 16 years, he wasn’t happy about it, but he mostly shrugged it off as a case of a guy having a bad day. When it started happening every other week, he wondered whether the new boss just didn’t like him very much.
The New York Times reported “a crazy shake, then metal tearing, and chaos.” It sounds like a description of any one of a hundred movie disaster scenes. This was no movie, however. It was what the passengers aboard Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 experienced on the evening of May 12, 2015, as they hurtled through Philadelphia on their way to New York City. The train derailed as it failed to navigate a curve in the tracks, killing eight people and injuring more than 200 others.
Life for “Marcie” is very different than it was just five years ago. Back then, she was married to a highly successful professional. She lived in a beautiful house in a very nice neighborhood. Her kids were happy, healthy, and doing well in high school. Marcie didn’t know it then, but her husband would be dead less than 18 months later and she would be struggling to survive financially, in the wake of the medical error that led to his early death.
Staring at spreadsheets and other information on her computer screen was a big part of the job for “Leslie.” Not long after her 43rd birthday, Leslie realized that doing that all day wasn’t as easy as it used to be. By the middle of the afternoon, her eyes would grow tired. Adjusting her computer display settings didn’t help much. She’d always had fantastic vision, but recalled that both her parents had needed reading glasses in their forties. Was it her turn?
First, “Sandra” lost the baby. Then she lost her health, and then she started to lose her career. With pre-settlement funding from USClaims, though, Sandra and her family are keeping their lives together.
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