Okeechobee. A jury has awarded more than a million dollars to a 24-year-old injured Okeechobee resident. However, even a million dollars can’t make up for the injuries that Tiffany Bullington, a client of the Accident Law Offices of Philip DeBerard, received. She suffered severe injuries and permanent scarring and disfigurement to her face, arms and chest as the result of an auto accident in 2004. The jury award was the highest Judge McManus has seen in a contested case in Okeechobee County. The jury also awarded Bullington over $1,073,500 for her injuries, lost wages, pain and suffering and medical expenses.

During the six day trial, the jury learned Bullington was injured by a negligent driver. Bullington was a back seat passenger in a Dodge Neon driven by a friend. The friend was passing a minibus that was driving under the speed limit. As the Neon was in the process of passing the bus, it was hit in the rear driver’s door by another vehicle that pulled out of a private driveway. This impact caused the Neon’s driver to lose control and the car fishtailed and then rolled over into a deep canal, landing upside down and partially submerged. Bullington’s boyfriend, also a passenger in the car, with the help of a bystander, found Bullington unconscious and lifeless and frantically drug her out of the vehicle and onto the shoulder of the canal so she wouldn’t drown.

The driver who caused the accident was clearly negligent because she did not make sure the traffic was clear in both directions before pulling out and striking the Neon. Under the law, she was required to "yield the right-of-way to all vehicles approaching on the highway."

Bullington was flown to the hospital, where she was found to have a liver laceration, facial lacerations, a shattered and broken right wrist, a right finger dislocation, a broken arm, and other accident-induced medical problems. She later had to undergo multiple operations on her wrist, and she continues to suffer from pain, loss of strength in her dominant right hand, and facial scars. She faces a series of plastic surgery procedures and additional operations on her wrist in the future, and she is unsure she will ever be able to be employed again as a waitress.