All he had to do was keep his eyes 12 seconds ahead. Instead of scanning for traffic, a semitruck driver zoned out as his truck barreled down one of Vermont’s picturesque hills. Around the bend waited a line of stopped vehicles along a bridge. The driver reacted too late and slammed on his brakes, but four out of ten of the poorly maintained brakes heated to failure. The 70,000-pound 18-wheeler full of natural gas squealed across the bridge, unable to stop in time. Up ahead, a minivan with a 39-weeks pregnant mother, her husband, and two young children sat at the end of the line. The semitruck smashed into the back of the minivan and crushed it into the cars ahead. The family’s seatbelts contracted, stapling the family into place while glass sprayed over them.
The impact ripped open the mother’s uterus. Following the crash, paramedics whisked her away to the hospital for an emergency C-section; her delivery date had only been six days away. The doctors delivered the child, but the force of the crash had injured the baby’s brain, depriving her of oxygen. The infant shuddered and gasped for 23 hours. Her brain functions were severely limited, and she passed away the day after the accident. The death of their daughter devastated the already traumatized family.
Soon after the crash, the family reached out to Trevor Savage, a trial lawyer at Gideon Asen specializing in catastrophic injury. Trevor immediately sent out document requests to ensure there’d be no spoliation of evidence. He obtained dash cam video from the truck driver, which demonstrated that the driver had failed to timely respond to the stopped traffic. However, state investigators had also determined that four out of ten of the slack adjusters on the brakes weren't working properly. To discover which maintenance company was liable, Trevor combed through every service documentation from the months leading up to the collision. He focused on two liable parties: the commercial trucking company and the maintenance company that serviced the brakes.
Trevor’s main challenge became establishing the liability of both parties, given that the maintenance company was severely underinsured relative to the case’s value. Fortunately, there were no questions about whether his clients had contributed to the crash. Since the defendants were unable to blame the plaintiffs, they instead pointed figures at each other. Trevor was able to establish the driver’s liability easily enough based on his deposition and dash cam footage. However, he needed to show what had happened to cause the brakes to fail, given the driver claimed there were no braking issues leading up to the day of the crash.
Trevor hired reconstructionists to sift through the truck’s event data module, as well as pore through the state’s reconstruction. He also brought on an industry expert to opine on safe trucking practices and an expert on fleet maintenance. The team confirmed that because the driver slammed on the faulty brakes while heading downhill, he likely heated up the drums, which exacerbated the brakes’ failure. In addition, Trevor hired DK Global early on in the process to work with the experts and visually amalgamate all of the crash data. He needed to convey to a jury how a big rig’s braking system worked and what “looking ahead 12 seconds” versus “5 seconds” at 55 mph actually meant.
To address Trevor’s needs, DK Global created multiple animations that compared the crash to hypothetical scenarios where the brakes worked and the driver was attentive. The visual opened with the truck driver’s dash cam footage of the crash. The entire crash was animated to provide a clear picture of the event. The interior look of the minivan revealed the whole family and the unborn child. Following this, a 3D model of the truck demonstrated four brake defects. Two alternative scenarios showed that the truck would have had ample time to stop if the brakes were functional and if the driver had been looking ahead 12 seconds. The animation concluded with a medical model of the mother’s ruptured uterus.
Trevor intentionally postponed any mediations until he had gathered all discovery (including 30 depositions) and had the DK Global animation ready. When the two defendants saw the final animation, it felt to Trevor like a checkmate — neither party could no longer weasel out of their responsibility. They settled the case for more than $40,000,000. By the time Trevor told the family, he had been working with them for over three years to arrive at this bittersweet moment. While Trevor could not return their child, he could provide a sense of accountability, justice, and closure, allowing the family to move forward again.
Trevor Savage, a trial lawyer at Gideon Asen, represents plaintiffs in complex, high-stakes litigation across Northern New England. He focuses his practice on truck accidents, medical malpractice, and other catastrophic injury cases. Since joining Gideon Asen in 2023, he has helped recover more than $70 million for clients facing devastating injuries and loss. Before joining the firm, Trevor spent years representing corporations, hospitals, healthcare providers, and insurance companies in highly leveraged litigation. The experience gave him unique strategic insight that allows him to fight for people whose lives have been upended by carelessness and injustice.
