Bucks woman tells of personal agony after 2007 accident

Weeks after a school bus ran over 17-year-old Ashley Zauflik outside Pennsbury High School, mangling her body, her parents faced a daunting decision: "Take her leg off, or she would die," Marguerite Zauflik testified Friday in Bucks County Court.

"It was excruciating. It was the worst day ever of my life," she told the jury of eight women and four men. "Would she be upset with me, mad at me? I had to do it - it was either that or die."

When the girl awakened from a monthlong medically induced coma, surgeons told her they had amputated her left leg six inches above the knee. "She looked up at me, stared at me," Marguerite Zauflik recalled. " 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It was the only thing I could do to save you.' "

Nearly five years after the accident, Ashley Zauflik is suing the Pennsbury district for at least $3 million in damages - about $5.7 million with inflation - plus compensation for pain and suffering. The district, which denied liability until Monday, has offered a total of $500,000 to her and seven other students whose injuries were not nearly as serious.

Pennsbury's offer is based on a state cap on financial liability for school districts and municipalities. But the district is not prevented from paying above the cap, Zauflik's lawyer, Tom Kline, said outside the courtroom. And no matter how the jury finds next week, the case is probably headed to the state Supreme Court, which has not reviewed the cap since 1986, he said.

"This case will show what the community thinks [the accident] is worth," Kline said.

The district's lawyer, David Cohen, declined to comment on the case.

In the third and final day of testimony, Ashley Zauflik and her parents gave tearful accounts of their ordeal, which has included more than 25 surgeries and procedures, a month of therapy and a bout with depression. In an unusual move, the jurors left the courtroom with the young woman so she could show them some of her scars and her amputated limb in private.

She said it took her two years from the Jan. 12, 2007, accident to come to grips with the amputation.

"I didn't want to believe it. Then there was the realization that it's not going to come back," she said.

After the amputation, she experienced phantom leg pain. "You feel your leg still," she said. "Sometimes it itches. Sometimes it feels like your foot's moving. It messes up your head."

Ashley Zauflik said she has felt pain every day since she came out of the coma, in all parts of her body. Mentally, she said, she considers herself "disfigured. I'm not the same anymore. Have body issues I never had in high school. I have crutches."

She said she does not remember the accident - the school bus heading toward her as the driver mistakenly stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake; a school aide holding her; the ambulance ride to St. Mary Medical Center; or the helicopter flight to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

But her parents, who sat outside the courtroom during her testimony - "she didn't want to disappoint or hurt them," lawyer William Goldman said - described that harrowing day and the 51/2 weeks at the Penn hospital.

"She was conscious, and she was white as a ghost," Marguerite Zauflik said of her daughter's condition when she arrived at the medical center. "Her leg was black and pushed to the side. 'I'm going to walk, I'm going to walk again,' she said."

The girl was placed in a coma to reduce her pain, but her eyes moved, she twitched, and her heart rate and blood pressure increased when she was treated, her parents said.

"To comfort her, we held her hand, and my wife sang," father Paul Zauflik said. "The radio played her music 24/7."

Ashley Zauflik made it home in late February, but was rushed back to the hospital three days later for a bowel obstruction that required another operation. She later underwent a month of outpatient therapy, including learning how to use a prosthetic leg.

The prosthesis did not fit well and hurt her, Ashley Zauflik said, so she relies on crutches and a wheelchair instead.

Lawyers for both sides agree she would be best served with a high-tech prosthesis equipped with a microchip, but their experts differ on the cost of supplying it for the next 56 years, her life expectancy. The Zaufliks' expert put the price at $2 million; Pennsbury's projection is $1.5 million.

Ashley Zauflik said she was excited to get the new prosthesis, to start a new chapter in her life.

"I don't want to be 24 and living at home," she said. "I want to take care of myself and start a family."

Closing arguments were scheduled for Monday, and then the case will go to the jury.