A week after a tractor-trailer crash killed five people on Interstate 35 in Austin, Texas, a survivor of the 19-vehicle wreck has sued the transportation companies and truck driver involved.
According to the lawsuit filed by Nathan Jonard, attorney Bradley Beckworth said his client’s life “was forever changed by an act of unimaginable destruction” when Solomun Weldekeal Araya rammed his tractor-trailer into a line of traffic.
The complaint, obtained by FreightWaves, seeks over $100 million in damages from Amazon Logistics, ZBN Transport and Araya himself – who was arrested a day after the incident and charged with five counts of intoxication manslaughter and two counts of intoxication assault.
It stated that Jonard was southbound on I-35 when construction on the interstate halted traffic. At the same time, Araya was behind Jonard, hauling a full load of cargo for Amazon as an independent contractor with ZBN Transport.
Once Jonard’s vehicle stopped, the complaint stated Araya failed to slow down or stop, resulting in a high-impact, high-speed collision.
“Eyewitnesses later confirmed the horrifying reality: Defendant Araya never even touched the brakes,” the complaint stated. “He slammed into car after car after car, unleashing destruction across the highway.
“The force of the collision caused Plaintiff to lose consciousness. He woke up in a mangled vehicle, disoriented, and in agonizing pain. His head and legs were bleeding. His ribs throbbed with unbearable intensity.”
Emergency responders arrived and transported Jonard to Dell Seton Medical Center, where doctors treated him for a number of injuries from broken ribs and other bones and a herniated C5/C6 disc “causing excruciating nerve pain” and lacerations all over his body.
The complaint stated that Araya failed a field sobriety test after the incident and a detective determined that he was impaired by CNS depressants at the time of the collision.
“CNS depressants are an overarching category of medications that include sedatives, tranquillizers, and hypnotics, and are known to slow down signals sent between the brain and the body,” the complaint stated.
Furthermore, the complaint stated that Araya had multiple previous hours-of-service violations and prior hazardous moving violations while operating commercial vehicles.
The complaint accuses Araya, Amazon “and/or” ZBN Transport on several counts of negligence.
“This is a tragedy for all involved,” said Beckworth in an emailed statement to FreightWaves. “And perhaps the most tragic part of it is that it was completely avoidable. Amazon and ZBN Transport used a driver who had multiple prior moving violations and had several violations for exceeding his allowable driving time limits in the week before this tragedy. And, he failed 6 different drug and intoxication tests taken after the wreck. These defendants needlessly endangered our entire community. On behalf of Mr. Jonard, we intend to hold them accountable and, hopefully, we can prevent other tragedies like this from happening in the future.”
Beckworth asked anyone who has information about the wreck or people involved to call his office, Nix Patterson LLP.
Beckworth added that he thinks this case “should serve as a strong message to our legislators who are meeting in session in Austin.”
“Right now, powerful big money corporations are doing everything they can to limit the right to a jury trial in cases like this,” he said. “They want to limit the amount a family can recover for pain and suffering to $500,000 for their entire life. Yet, at the very same time, they are trying to protect big corporations from having a jury find out that they hire truck drivers who are on drugs and alcohol or who have had prior violations that should have kept them from ever being hired.”
“Hopefully, when legislators see facts like we are dealing with here they will think twice before they choose big corporations who are trying to take away our right to a trial by jury,” he continued.
“This is a horrible tragedy, and our thoughts are with all those involved,” said Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel in an emailed statement to FreightWaves. “We’re cooperating with all investigations.”
FreightWaves has reached out to ZBN Transport for comment.
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