Palos Park woman loses leg in I-80 accident

A woman from Palos Park lost her leg in a car accident on I-80 near Joliet last week.  She was a passenger in a car which hit a patch of ice and went off the road into a guardrail.  As she was getting out of the disabled vehicle, another car hit the same patch of ice and lost control.  The second car hit her, pinning her against the car and causing her to lose her right leg and left foot.

The driver of the second vehicle had a bottle of open alcohol in the car with him, but blood alcohol testing showed that he was not intoxicated.

As an experienced Chicago personal injury lawyer, a few thoughts came to mind when reading this story:

1.  The insurance company for the second driver is likely to deny liability on the case.  If he was not intoxicated, there is a reasonable chance of keeping the open alcohol out of evidence if the case were to go to trial.  After that, they may be able to defend the case based on the fact that it was the ice that caused the accident, and was in fact what caused the original accident.  They may also be helped in this by the fact that there had apparently been a number of accidents at that location this winter season.

2.  This woman has obviously suffered significant, life-changing injuries and will have enormous medical expenses.  Because of this, it is crucial to identify all possible sources of compensation for this car accident.  One avenue I would examine is the possibility of making an Illinois underinsured motorist claim on both both her own vehicle and the one she was exiting at the time of the accident.  One of my pet theories is that bad drivers tend have the worst insurance, and I would not be optimistic about a driver with an open bottle of alcohol in his car having good insurance.