Don Marx

Thirty painful surgeries later, Don Marx is still dealing with the horrible moment a parked defective U-Haul truck surged into him while he was gassing up his Bronco at a station near his home. He was pinned between the two rigs. His left leg was crushed, the bones smashed into small pieces and the muscle, tendons and skin mutilated.

It took three years before he could straighten his leg again. There were surgeries, agonizing skin grafts, and multiple infections. In just one split second, Don lost his livelihood, his mobility, and his peace of mind.

“I was determined not to lose my leg. I had one procedure where they re-broke my femur and put stakes in between the bones and secured everything from the outside. I had a device that brought the pieces closer together and I had to click it to make it work. Click, click. Every day. It hurt like crazy, but I did it. And the skin grafts were even worse. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Like torture.”

His life has been completely changed since that day. Before the crash, he was a Merchant Marine for 15 years. He also served as a Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy. Work took him around the world twice, making a living in part from his physical abilities. That’s all gone now. Instead, he lives with physical pain and ongoing trauma every single day.

“My emotional rheostat is shaky,” he says. “I go from sadness to anger. I never used to be that way.”

He was able to hold UHaul responsible for his life-altering injuries and bought a small gas station of his own in rural Oregon so he could support himself. The settlement helped to pay for Marx’s medical bills, lost wages, and loss of an active life he was never able to go back to. If his case had been negotiated under the shadow of an arbitrary cap that didn’t take into account what happened to him, things would have gone much differently, he believes.

“I would have been wiped out,” he says. “I don’t know what I would have done.”