Attorney Justin McMinn just filed a civil suit in Travis County on behalf of Delaney Nelson, a 19-year-old Austin college student involved in an accident with a dump truck. The unsafe dump truck caused serious injuries to Nelson during the accident on FM 2222 last month.
Attorney Justin McMinn just filed a civil suit in Travis County on behalf of Delaney Nelson, a 19-year-old Austin college student involved in an accident with a dump truck. The unsafe dump truck caused serious injuries to Nelson during the accident on FM 2222 last month.
Nelson is asking for a jury trial in her suit for at least $1M to cover medical bills and pain & suffering. She was on her way to class when the unsafe, un-roadworthy dump truck t-boned her vehicle. A driver of a non-involved vehicle captured the accident on her dash cam; a video that attorney McMinn said is vital to proving Nelson’s case.
McMinn said, “Anybody that watches that video, their first reaction is oh my gosh, how many people died in the accident? Fortunately here nobody did die.” Austin police said that six people were transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries. A crash report from the APD stated that the dump truck’s brakes failed; however, the report also found other factors behind the crash.
The dash cam video clearly shows the dump truck as it crashes through traffic, T-bones Nelson’s car, hits several other vehicles and then flies over a cliff. Cookie Bandel, the driver whose dash cam caught the accident, said, “I was just sitting there waiting for the light to change and apparently he lost his brakes.”
Bandel added that, “I think I was in shock. It chose to go in the right lane and if it [the driver] hadn’t it [the truck] would have rear ended me.”
According to Cpl. Chad Martinka of the APD, “Some citizens jumped down there and helped extricate him [the dump truck driver] out of there before it caught on fire.”
Things did not go so well for Delaney Nelson, however. The young woman suffered spinal injuries and had glass embedded in her face. She even had glass in her ear drums. Her car is a total loss and, personally, she has a long, painful road ahead of her to full recovery.
Her lawyer said, “It was very scary and traumatic for her.”
McMinn filed the suit quickly to avoid loss of evidence, such as an opportunity to inspect the dump truck. According to McMinn, “The truck never should have been on the road, and that driver should never have been behind the wheel.”
Nelson’s suit lists some very serious reasons for the latter part of McMinn’s previous statement. Codie Korn, the dump truck driver, has a felony record and twenty safety violations in the last fifteen months against Franco’s Trucking, the truck’s owner.
Austin truck accident lawyer Dustin Fox explained that “safety violations such as these are public record thanks to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Act.” Fox’s firm, Justinian PLLC, routinely looks for driver safety violations and Fox is “often surprised” by what he finds.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” said Fox, “but it is simply inexcusable for Franco’s Trucking to have continued to employ a driver with that many safety violations. Hopefully, the justice system will appropriately punish Franco’s Trucking for allowing such a dangerous driver on the road.”
McMinn made a strong point, saying, “It’s about community safety and if you’re going to be in our community and operate a business you’ve got to do things the right way and if you don’t, things like that can happen.”
Franco’s Trucking declined to give KEYE TV any comment on the issue.
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