La Plata, MD – A civil jury trial between a man who was run over while lying in the road and the woman who hit him was resolved Wednesday, Jan. 13 when a six-member jury ruled in favor of defendant Vivian E. Burch and the Victoria Fire and Casualty Company against plaintiff Joshua R. Gomes, 33 of La Plata.

The case began Monday before Charles County Circuit Court Judge Helen I. Harrington and concluded Wednesday just before 1 p.m.

The three-day trial recalled a sad night for Gomes, who according to testimony crashed his mother’s car May 2, 2010 on the median strip of Route 5 in Mechanicsville and then began walking toward La Plata in the early morning hours.

Gomes was walking on Oliver Shop Road in Charles County when he was apparently struck in a hit-and-run incident.

The man suffered substantial injuries, including two broken shoulder blades, broken ribs, two dislocated knees, one punctured lung, one collapsed lung and injuries to his spine and pelvis.

He also lost several teeth and was lying across the road when the then-19-year-old Burch, returning from York, PA at 4 a.m., came over the crest of the hill and struck him again where he lay in the roadway.

Burch testified that she had no alcohol or drugs in her system when she was on her way home driving her parent’s Ford F-150 pickup truck.

“It was pitch black,” Burch testified, adding that she thought she saw a cardboard box in the roadway. What she saw turned out to be a man, she added, saying she applied her brakes, but ended up running over the body stretched out across the roadway.

The woman said she pulled into a driveway and called 911.

Stephanie Abell testified that she came upon the scene a few minutes later and admitted it was dark.

“When I came around the bend I noticed a car’s headlights in my lane,” Abell said. “They were stopped. I thought maybe they’d hit a deer,” she explained.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, there’s a man in the road who has been run over,’ ” she recalled. “I went over to Mr. Gomes. There were bones sticking out. There was blood everywhere. He was face down on the ground. I could see he was breathing. There was money all over the ground, on the grass and in the lane … it was just everywhere.”

Abell also testified that she found his driver’s license and one of his shoes. She said he looked like “he’d been sucked out of it.”

She said there was a lot of debris in the road, small pieces of what looked like plastic.

Dr. James Friese of the University of Maryland Medical System testified via video that Gomes’ injuries were consistent to someone who had been in a standing position when he was injured.

Gomes told attorney Tom Pyles that he has no memory of anything that happened prior to April 28.

His first memory when he was brought out of a chemically induced coma was grabbing onto bars that protruded from his pelvis.

“I recall feeling like I was broken from head to toe,” he said.

Gomes said that pieces of asphalt and pavement seeped out of his wounds for weeks in the hospital bed.

The money found all over the scene was “probably” from a paycheck he cashed before leaving work the day of the accident, he said.

Defense Attorney Walter Gilchrest asked Gomes in cross examination whether or not he was walking with traffic or against traffic, which is part of Maryland law, that pedestrians should walk against traffic in order to see what was coming.

Gomes responded he walked in the direction that was comfortable for him.

Gilchrest asked Gomes if he’d been drinking that night.

“I do not recall anything about that night,” he answered.

Pyles argued in closing that Burch’s actions were negligent, that she was struggling to keep her eyes open after being in York, PA and driving home in the wee hours of May 2.

“You have to ask yourself what would a reasonable person so if you see something in the roadway?” Pyles asked. “What would a reasonable person do? Even if it was a cardboard box, wouldn’t you try not to hit it? Clearly, with her headlights functioning, she should have avoided him.”

Gilchrest argued that Gomes was failing to accept responsibility for his own actions, that he had been drinking the night in question, that he wrecked his mother’s car on Route 5 and then in his inebriated state walked 3.9 miles from that accident because he didn’t want police to find that he was driving while intoxicated.

He said by walking with traffic rather than against it, that he put himself in a position where he was struck, not only by his client, but by the “phantom driver” who struck Gomes before Burch came along.

The jury found for the defendant, and Burch was exonerated of civil penalties.

Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com