Amputee billed by PennDot for guardrail

PITTSBURGH - A January crash on snowy I-80 in Mercer County sheared off Marzena Mulawka's right leg and shattered her left leg, pelvis, and back, turning the 26-year-old's life upside down.

In spite of it, her radiant smile beams in dozens of photographs taken during and after her five months in Pittsburgh hospitals, where she underwent surgery eight times and had bone, muscle and skin grafts and an assortment of titanium plates and screws implanted.

She calls Jan. 3 "the day I proved to myself and everyone else that I can get through anything with my strength, faith, willpower, passion, and love for life."

There's one thing that sours Mulawka: a bill for $2,509.42 sent to her family by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for guardrail damaged in the crash - the very guardrail that she says tore through her car door and cut off her leg.

PennDot "should be ashamed for being such a cold-blooded and unprofessional organization. This bill is simply atrocious," she wrote in a 2,000-word e-mail to the department this month.

"I'm the type of person who looks at the glass as being half-full. But come on, already," she said in a telephone interview from Murfreesboro, Tenn., where she is recovering. "I can't believe they would have sent something like that."

PennDot spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick said that "the situation [she] described is a tragedy," and that the matter was under review.

He said that the department tried to recover the cost of guardrails damaged in crashes because of its limited budget, but that recovery claims typically were waived in cases of serious injury or death.

"I just don't know why this happened," Kirkpatrick said.

Mulawka, an Illinois native, was driving from Chicago to New York to fulfill what she called a "lifelong dream" to live in New York City and work for the FBI as a forensic scientist.

The FBI had offered her a job, and she planned to pursue a second master's degree and her doctorate. "All the things I had worked diligently for over so many years were finally all coming together," she said.

As she traveled on I-80 in Lackawannock in a snowstorm, she said, a tractor-trailer struck her vehicle from behind, sending it spinning into the end of a guardrail, which pierced the vehicle with such force that the driver's door was pushed over to the passenger side.

"During impact, the guardrail amputated my right leg below the knee, and broke both my tibia and fibula on my left leg, pushing both bones out of both sides of my ankle," she wrote to PennDot.

Not knowing at first how bad her injuries were, she pulled herself out of the wreckage and along the ground, away from traffic and down a snowy embankment.

The tractor-trailer did not stop, she said. A couple from Philadelphia who had been traveling behind her did.

"She was crawling out. She was on her hands, basically, dragging herself through the snow," said Joe Stewart, who went to Mulawka's aid with his soon-to-be wife, Tricia.

On a night of treacherous roads and numerous crashes, it took paramedics more than two hours to reach the scene.

Doctors wanted Mulawka flown to a Pittsburgh hospital, but the weather was too bad, so she went by ambulance. Doctors later told her that she had lost 60 percent of her blood.

In August, after she left the hospital and went to Tennessee to stay with her sister, a bill arrived at her father's home in Illinois. "Demand for payment is hereby made upon you by the Department of Transportation for the cost of repairing department property," it said.

It warned that failure to pay could result in a court judgment and additional costs for interest and legal fees.

"Awe and disgust," she said was her reaction to the bill.

The department sent an overdue notice Sept. 26, and she responded Oct. 7 with her e-mail.

"This incident and your guardrail scarred me, emotionally and physically, forever, disabled me, and delayed all of the dreams that I have worked so hard for and [PennDot] has the audacity to send me this bill?

"Who is going to pay my hospital bills, my insurance deductible, my physical therapy bills, my lawyer bill, the bill for my prosthetic leg and constant adjustments, and all the other bills that have resulted from my accident and have totaled to well over one million dollars and counting?" she asked.

She attached X-rays of her injuries and copies of medical bills.

PennDot replied a week later with a two-sentence message saying the Office of Chief Counsel would review the matter.

Now 27, Mulawka wears a prosthetic leg and has undergone intensive physical therapy. She said doctors were on the verge of allowing her to resume running, a passion of hers before the crash.

"I worked my butt off, and I'm going to be walking the streets of New York pretty soon," she said.

In August, she traveled to Philadelphia to be a bridesmaid in the Stewarts' wedding. She credits them with saving her life.

"I just stopped to help out," said Stewart, a garage-door technician. "I get chills when I hear that now because I know her and I know what a special lady she is. She's inspiring. She's an amazing woman."