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Press Room
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Shattered Dream
Accident changes Debbie Kraft’s life forever
By UMUT NEWBURY
Wise County Messenger
Every family has a dream. Mike and Debbie Kraft's dream was to move into the country, live in the house they built together and raise their children in a safe environment.
They lived in a mobile home in Keller with their two children, Monica and Wesley, for 16 years while saving up money to buy land. "We are the kind of people who like to be on their own land," said Debbie Kraft. "We bought land in Wise County and borrowed the money to build our house."
On the Fourth of July in 1999, they moved into their dream home on Old Denton Highway in Decatur.
The children continued their education in the Keller school district in the following fall.
"Keller is a good school district and I worked there, so we didn't want to move them here," she said.
What the Krafts did not know was that their dream would only be fulfilled for 10 months.
The nightmare
On May 16, 2000, Debbie Kraft was driving the children back from school to their home in Decatur. It was a dry, sunny, spring afternoon. Shortly before 6 p.m. on U.S. 81/287 near Farm Road 2264, Adrian Ervin, 18, of Mustang, Okla., tried to merge into the left lane, not seeing Debbie Kraft's 1993 Ford Explorer.
Kraft ended up on the shoulder of the highway and after continuing on the shoulder for a while, got back into the left lane. She crossed over to the right lane and when she tried to correct her maneuver, going about 40 miles per hour, her Ford Explorer rolled over, flipping several times before coming to rest in the median. The roof of the vehicle caved in on Kraft's head. She had her seat belt on, but her neck was broken. Volunteer firefighters used a hydraulic tool to free her from the vehicle. She was flown by helicopter ambulance to Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth. "She was in the ICU for 16 days," said Mike Kraft. "She had surgery in Harris, then she was in Baylor (Medical Center)." The doctors, he said, knew Debbie's neck was broken, and had to wait for the swelling to go down on her head lacerations. "They put 275 stitches and 60 staples on her head," he said. When she eventually came out of the hospital, Debbie Kraft was in a wheelchair, quadriplegic, paralyzed from the chin down. She was 43. "The Debbie Kraft I used to be died," she says. "I can't take care of Monica or Wesley. I can't say let's go out to eat at McDonald's."
The battle
A few months after the accident, the Krafts decided to take civil action against Ford Motor Co.
"I wanted to go to trial, because I bought a Ford, a product that is supposed to be reliable and a product I worked hard to pay for. Instead, I had bought a product potentially deadly," Debbie Kraft said.
They contacted Randy Barnhart in Englewood. Colo., an attorney who had been taking cases against Ford since 1989. "This vehicle is unstable," Barnhart said. "She was going 40 miles per hour and it rolled over."
Barnhart said Debbie Kraft's situation was not unlike other cases he has seen. "There are probably hundreds of people injured because of similar situations across the nation," he said. Barnhart was later joined by Mike Simpson of Simpson and Boyd in Wise County and Sylvia Demarest of Dallas. In April 2001, Simpson said the Ford Explorer came under attack. "There were lawsuits being filed and animosity between Ford and Firestone about what's causing the deaths," he said. Because of the rollover propensity of the vehicle, Simpson said, Ford started suggesting that customers keep their tire pressure at 26 pounds per square inch instead of 35 psi. "They wanted to compensate for the unstability, but that made tires more susceptible to detreading," he said. "In this case, there were no Firestone tires."
Simpson says, "to every good lawsuit there is a paper trail and that's what we had in this case."
He, along with Barnhart and Demarest started compiling documents that supported the unstability claim.
"Ford wanted to make an off-the-road vehicle like the Bronco II," he said. "In the end they changed the name but not the product." Ford Explorer, Simpson said, is 80 percent Bronco II.
A Ford Co. internal memo from June 1989 reports, "There is a risk that testing by Consumer's Union will indicate the UN46 is very similar to the Bronco II." The memo also reports the "speeds on the short course for two-wheel lift are essentially the same as Bronco II." "If the vehicle is tested by starting at the fail speed of the Bronco II or highest pass speed of the S10, then there is very little margin before two wheel lift." The Ford engineers, in another memo titled "Recommendations," suggested the company "utilize as many of the chassis revisions as possible without delaying the Ford Explorer project." "They called the project UN46 and the engineers told them they needed to widen and lower the vehicle," Simpson said, "but marketing said they had to get the vehicle out to keep the marketing share." Simpson said Ford could not lower the engine because of its trademark feature Twin I Beam."Here is Ford with all the problems, but they need to get the product out," Simpson said. "In the end marketing won over the engineering."
In 1989, Ford's engineering department had also recommended "Incorporate additional revisions as running changes within one year after production." Simpson said Ford Explorer, before the 2002 revisions, was "not reliable in ordinary avoidance maneuvers." "You are okay with this car until a cat or a five-year-old jumps in front of you," he said. "In the 2002 Explorer they lowered and widened the vehicle and strengthened the roof to avoid crushing." What the research revealed about the Explorer, Simpson said, is "unbelievable." "It would have been a very interesting case," he said. "They (The Ford side) weren't going to claim Debbie was negligent or had done anything wrong. Their whole argument was going to be that vehicle rollover, this is not a defective product." That's exactly what Ford Co. attorneys had in mind. "Ford believes in this vehicle, that it is reliable," said Ron Wamsted, Ford Co. attorney from Austin. "Unfortunately bad things happen to good people and that's what happened." Wamsted said their research showed many other vehicles have the chance of rolling over on flat, dry pavement. "Bad things happen at those speeds," he said. "The accident began at a speed of 70 to 75 miles an hour." Although he agrees that Kraft was going 40 miles an hour at the end of the accident, Wamsted said, the cause of the rollover was not a defect with the product. "The lady from Oklahoma (Ervin) was principally responsible," he said. "If it wasn't for her, this wouldn't have happened." Kraft, Wamsted said, "should have come to a complete stop on the shoulder, before getting back on the highway. "This was a 45 degree steering input, she was startled and afraid. The vehicle was subject to huge steering inputs."
The resolution
"We had top notch lawyers on both sides and we were prepared to go to trial," Wamsted said, "but we were able to reach an accommodation suitable for both parties." The Krafts' lawsuit came to an end with a sealed settlement on the day it was scheduled for jury trial, Feb. 11, 2002, in Decatur. There will be no judgment on liability, just a settlement agreement judgment in the 271st District Court, which prevents the Krafts from taking any future legal action against Ford. Any jury in Wise County, Wamsted said, "would have been sympathetic to Debbie Kraft." "There were only 32 people on the jury panel and that wasn't big enough," he said. Barnhart says Ford, "has the pocketbook." "Our principal goal is to do our best to improve the situation for our clients," he said. "We also want the manufacturers to think more about safety, that there is a second set of eyes out there."
The reality
Twenty-one months after the accident, Debbie Kraft sits in her wheelchair in the middle of the living room.
The family's pet Chihuahua, Remi, 1, is sitting on her lap. Kraft has regained some movement in her hand and shoulder, so she pets the dog as part of her physical therapy. "I pet him, but I can't feel his fur," she says. "I see that he licks my fingers, but I don't feel it."
After the accident, Monica and Wesley switched to homeschooling so they could help take care of their mother. "Monica and Mike brush my hair, teeth, dress me," she said. "If I have an itch in the middle of the night I have to wake Mike up and ask him to do it for me." Mike Kraft said it takes three hours to prepare his wife for the day. "If we start the shower at 9:30 at night, it will be midnight before she gets in bed," he said.
Monica empties her mother's catheter bag every half hour and helps with the bowel program every other day. Mike Kraft wakes up every three hours every night to turn his wife. "We also have to be careful about giving kisses and hugs, because her immune system is shot to pieces," he said. "She could die from a common cold." Debbie Kraft said after a year, she told her preacher she, "couldn't have done it to save someone's life." "This is the hardest thing I could ever imagine, and it's harder on the family," she said. "Seeing my teenage daughter do things for me that I did for her when she was a baby is hard."
The settlement will allow the Krafts to get professional care for Debbie, so Monica can go to college and Mike can go back to work as an independent plumbing contractor. "It's a substantial settlement, but I'd rather pay them this much money to have her standing up again," Mike Kraft said.
The hope
Monica Kraft says she's been happy to take care of her mother since the incident. "I'd rather have her here and do these things for her then her not be here at all," she said. "I just believe someday she is going to get everything back - she is supposed to."
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