Over the last decade, thousands of cars have driven through storefronts and injured even more thousands of people across the United States. A hospital in Austin, Texas, was aware of this danger — its parent company had and installed bollards to protect its equipment and some of the other ERs in its network. However, at this hospital, it neglected to safeguard its patients in this ER lobby. On a February afternoon, out in the parking lot, an intoxicated woman lost control of her vehicle and plowed it at high speed through the ER’s glass doors. The sedan flew into the lobby and struck a family of four looking at a massive aquarium. The family — a mother, a father, along with their 3-year-old and 1-year-old children — had gathered to watch the fish. The car impact smashed them and hurled them off their feet. One of the children flew through the windshield after being struck and was later found in the floorboard after it smashed into the lobby’s office. Shards of glass, dying fish, and puddles of water littered the waiting room as the smoking car revved against the far wall.

The two toddlers had been standing against the aquarium’s glass when the car drove through it. Thousands of glass shards and granules of sand embedded into the children’s skin, requiring multiple surgeries to remove. The car dragged the 1-year-old with it, breaking the boy’s jaw and nasal bone. He later developed absence seizures, and both children suffered from behavior problems, developmental delays, and night terrors. The mother required surgery to stabilize her fractures and was plagued by chronic pain and tinnitus. TBIs and PTSD affected both parents. Collectively, the family’s medical bills cost millions, and they would suffer the rest of their lives from their injuries.

While recovering from the incident, the family reached out to Sean Breen, a partner at Howry, Breen & Herman, LLP, after learning of his reputation. Sean’s firm was well-known for its work prosecuting premises liability cases in which intrusions had resulted in severe personal injury. Sean met with the family, despite their serious injuries, and quickly began his investigation. He surveyed the accident scene and sought to understand the full mechanics of the crash. He discovered that the hospital had erected bollards around its own equipment and at some other ERs but not the ER lobby in question.

Digging deeper, Sean discovered that the medical conglomerate that owned the hospital had sustained at least four similar intrusions at their other hospitals. Indeed, in Texas alone, a couple of dozen crashes had occurred at various non-related medical facilities across the state. The conglomerate had even installed bollards at several of their other ER entrances to protect them from intoxicated, impaired, and terrorist drivers. They even had a nationwide inspection system established for bollards. The regional inspector lived less than a mile from the hospital in question and had volunteered to inspect the ER before the incident. However, the hospital failed to approve the inspection.

The hospital conglomerate shielded itself with a team of 30 defense lawyers, who blamed the entire incident on the inebriated driver. In response, Sean retained the family’s medical team as experts, as well as a team of nationally known experts to explain the safety statistics and standards of care for bollard and vehicle intrusion protection. He also hired DK Global early in the process to work with the experts and show how the injuries could have been prevented by the simple, inexpensive use of bollards.

Working with Breen, DK Global created two demonstrations, one focused on liability and the other on damages. In the liability video, security and witness footage was shown of the accident and its aftermath. Infographics revealed red dots marking where every crash into a medical facility had occurred in the U.S. since 2014, along with footage from those scenes. To highlight their effectiveness, DK Global overlaid 3D renderings of bollards across the security footage. In addition, 3D animations of the crash were also created, demonstrating how the presence of bollards would have prevented the plaintiffs’ horrific injuries.

In the damages video, each family member's injuries and sequelae were delineated. 3D medical illustrations of the family members revealed the areas where they suffered brain damage, fractures, lacerations, pain, and other bodily trauma. Their brain scans and radiology images were correlated with the 3D models. The mother's surgery was recreated to show how her leg fracture was stabilized.

Sean’s approach to the animations was to use them at every opportunity, including in depositions, presentations, and at mediation. His goal was to signal his readiness to take the case to trial, where there was a high risk of landing a “nuclear” verdict on the conglomeration. As trial neared, and the evidence, animations, and the statistics on bollards got closer to a jury, the tone shifted from blaming the driver to reaching a settlement. The case resolved confidentially, for an amount that ensured the whole family would be taken care of for the rest of their lives. The plaintiffs were overjoyed at the outcome. They were also pleased to learn that the hospital conglomerate had installed bollards at all its entrances in the Austin area. Local bollard ordinances were also passed. The clients saw how the justice system worked for them and to protect others from going through the devastation they had gone through.

As a founder of Howry, Breen & Herman, LLP, Sean Breen has achieved multiple seven- and eight-figure recoveries for his clients. He specializes in accident, personal injury, premises liability, and brain injury/paralysis cases. He has been included amongst the nation’s most respected and preeminent high-stakes trial lawyers based on his verdicts and settlements, with the awards of 7 Figure Litigators® and 8 Figure Litigators® by America’s Premier High-Stakes Litigators® in 2020. He has repeatedly been recognized for his accomplishments by Best Lawyers in America^®, Top 50 US Verdicts, Texas Verdicts Hall of Fame, Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, National Top 100 Trial Lawyers, Civil Plaintiff, and Super Lawyers®.