A Canadian couple has been awarded more than $9 million US in damages after they were hit by a big truck in an 18-wheeler accident while bicycling through Oregon.

Eric Moutal and Andrea Newman were bicycling on Interstate 84 in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon on Aug. 3, 2016 when a DHL shipping truck hit them. Moutal nearly lost his lower left leg in the accident, but credits both a nurse who stopped at the accident site to help him and six surgeries for saving his leg. He now walks with a cane, and can no longer commute to work on his bicycle.

An eight-member jury awarded the $9 million in amounts of $1.3 million in economic damages, $4 million in non-economic damages and $4 million in punitive damages, all to Moutal, who says he now can only ride his bicycle on very short trips. Newman, who is now his wife, was awarded $400,000 in non-economic damages. In legal terms, non-economic damages are awarded for pain and suffering.

According to CBC News, Moutal said the amount of the award is “not at all what we could have ever imagined.”

Moutal commented that he and Newman had kept their paid parking receipts from hospital stays, hoping to receive reimbursement.

In recent years, trucking companies have been found liable for nonfatal and fatal accidents that can cost them millions of dollars in damages.

DHL Found Liable for 18-Wheeler Accident

Trucker Terry Tisdale was driving the DHL supply chain truck for the company, which is legally known as Exel Inc. According to court documents, Tisdale had driven the road daily for years and “must have been familiar with the bright orange highway signs warning drivers that bicycles may be on the roadway.”

DHL tried to say the bicyclists crossed the white line that separated the shoulder from the travel lane, but the eyewitnesses said that’s not what happened.

The 18-wheeler accident lawsuit alleged the trucker had time to change to the fast lane to allow the bicyclists ample space, but eyewitnesses purportedly said the “truck veered right, across the fog line, into the bike lane and almost into the guardrail.”

Tisdale, a witness in a car behind the accident scene and a nurse all pulled over immediately following the collision. The two witnesses alleged Tisdale never attempted to help the injured bicyclists, and instead, kept trying to interfere with witness accounts and the police investigation.

Moutal and Newman said they had been biking along the Historic Columbia River Highway, but used a bit of interstate to get to back to their campground.

According to CBC, Oregon allows bicyclists on the shoulder of most highways, but the Oregon Department of Transportation has prohibited bicycling on a few urban freeways in Portland and Medford.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) compiled data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and posted 2018 data in December 2019. Of the 4,136 people who died in big rig accidents in 2018, a total of 15 percent (619 individuals) were pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcyclists. About one-third of fatal accidents involving large trucks occurred on highways.

The 18-Wheeler Accident Lawsuit is Moutal et al. v. Exel Inc., Case No. 3:17-cv-01444, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.