Dodger Stadium Assault Victim Will Need 24-Hour Care for Rest of Life, Says Witness

Written by Bill Hetherman

A rehabilitation specialist testified today that while Bryan Stow will need 24-hour care for the rest of his life due to a beating attack outside Dodger Stadium three years ago that left him with permanent brain damage, he is better off at home than at a board-and-care facility.

Dr. Thomas Hedge of Northridge Hospital Medical Center disagreed with a plaintiff's expert witness, who testified that Stow, now 45, should be moved to a care facility when he is 55 or 60 years old, in part to relieve the stress on his parents, who are caring for him in their home. His mother and father are 66 and 70, respectively.

Stow's attorneys have estimated his lifetime care and lost wages could top $37.5 million.

Taking the stand as a defense witness in the Los Angeles Superior Court trial of Stow's negligence lawsuit against former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and Los Angeles Dodgers LLC, Hedge said he met with Stow for about two hours at a Capitola hotel last year. Stow's parents were there and helped answer questions that their son could not, Hedge said.

Hedge said Stow gets the kind of love and care from relatives that he would not get at a group home, but he would not expect the former paramedic's parents to always be his primary caregivers. Hedge said there was a lack of rehabilitation centers near the Capitola-Aptos area where Stow lives with his mother and father.

In other testimony, Carol Hyland, a rehabilitation consultant who worked closely with Hedge in preparing a proposed lifecare plan for Stow, told jurors that considerable savings could be achieved by substituting alterative proposals to those offered by the plaintiffs' experts.

Hyland said that while the medical services cost estimates made by Stow's experts were reasonable, their predictions were fairly costly in such areas as modifying the plaintiff's home for his wheelchair and providing caregivers either within his home or in a care facility.

Hyland said she also did not see sufficient source material for some of the estimates offered by one plaintiff's rehabilitation expert, Mary Jesko.

Stow, in Giants gear, was punched from behind by Louie Sanchez in parking lot 2 after the home opener between the longtime rivals on March 31, 2011. Sanchez and Marvin Norwood, both Dodger fans, then kicked Stow after he fell to the ground.

Stow's attorneys maintain security was insufficient inside and outside of the stadium and that no officers or guards were present in lot 2 when Stow was attacked, suffering permanent brain injuries.

Stow's lawsuit was filed two months after the attack on behalf of the father of two. His attorneys maintain that Stow's assailants should have been kicked out of Dodger Stadium hours earlier for unruly behavior and that more uniformed security within the stadium could have acted as a deterrent to their misconduct.

Rialto residents Sanchez, 31, and Norwood, 33, pleaded guilty in January to carrying out the attack on Stow and were sentenced to eight- and four-year terms, respectively. They are also both facing a federal weapons charge that could land them in a federal lockup for up to 10 years.

Defense attorneys say Sanchez, Norwood and Stow are to blame for his injuries. They assert Stow was drunk, gestured toward his assailants and made sarcastic remarks. McCourt filed a cross-complaint against Norwood and Sanchez that is being tried along with Stow's case.

Several witnesses for Stow, however, have denied during the trial that he antagonized his assailants.

—City News Service