State Trooper at Fault in Car Accident; State Awards $1 Million

One million dollars will go to a Dumas couple. Aubrey and Judy Webb filed their claim for the pain and suffering caused by a car accident with an Arkansas state trooper three years ago. The state Claims Commission awarded the money after a hearing this morning. "It`s an awful thing to have your whole life taken away," cried Judy Webb. She spent the tearful, Thursday morning describing the instant that her life was changed. "I don`t know what happened, when it happened. It happened so fast, I didn`t know anything," she said. In February 2001, she and her husband, Aubrey, were driving a car on I-530. Their 1987 Ford Bronco rolled 8 times after being hit by State Trooper Ahsen Rauf`s police cruiser. He had lost control of the car after driving it on a median to get around two cars. "I woke up in the hospital and they was shoving me sideways putting a tube in my lung. It stayed there for 7 days, I had so much fluid in my chest," Judy Webb explained. The accident left her husband with a torn shoulder, broken vertebrae in his back and hip displacement. Her injuries are more severe. "Over 11 of her ribs were cracked, splintered and broke, both front and back, her sternum was crushed," said Duff Nolan, the couple`s attorney. "This is my hand that I did hair with all those years. But I don`t have any grip in it, and I can`t use it," Webb described. Her hand was crushed when the car rolled over it during the accident. She and her husband owned A Cut Above Hair Salon in Dumas. The Webbs live with chronic pain and say three years after the accident, their lives are not the same. "Mr. Webb can`t work as much as he could and Mrs. Webb is permanently disabled and she can`t work at all," Nolan said. The state had already admitted liability in the accident, but Thursday, the Webbs heard it from Trooper Rauf himself. "He told me that he was sorry, that he wanted to come to the hospital to see me," Webb said. "I appreciate his apology, I`m a Christian person. If someone tells me `I`m sorry` I`m gonna accept it." Trooper Rauf made no comment at the proceeding. In April 2001, he was charged with negligent driving for the accident and sentenced to five days without pay, transferred to Pulaski County and ordered to attend a driving class. The state`s attorney have not yet returned calls for comment on the ruling. The Webbs attorney says the money will cover the couples $60,000 in medical expenses, plus any future medical costs and loss of income. The legislature must approve the award, which means they wouldn`t receive any money until Spring.