Virginia State Police stated that a nine-year old child who was a passenger in a car with a drunk driver has died.
The crash happened in late August in Halifax County, Virginia. The child, Julian Suttle, died on Aug. 30 at Duke Medical Center.
The driver, Melissa Rhodes, 28, from Vernon Hill, was charged with DUI, and now has been charged with felony child neglect. Additional charges are pending.
The state police stated that the woman was driving west on Route 360 when she left the road and slammed into a utility pole. Neither she or the child were wearing seat belts.
It is not clear at this time if Rhodes was the child’s mother or a caregiver.
Our View
Our Virginia personal injury attorneys are saddened and angry that an apparently drunk driver has killed a child in her care. We frequently represent clients with severe personal injuries caused by a foolish and reckless drunk driver. Our hope is that the family of the child will soon file a wrongful death lawsuit against this woman.
Our personal injury lawyers are experienced in winning large settlements in DUI cases with severe injury and death. One of our attorneys, Ed Booth, obtained a $3.5 million verdict for a school teacher in Newport News VA who had catastrophic injuries due to a drunk driver.
The woman suffered debilitating, permanent injuries, including anoxic brain damage. If that wasn’t bad enough, she broke almost every major bone in her body, and underwent open reduction with internal fixation to all three bones in her right leg, her left femur, left elbow and hipbone. She also suffered a collapsed lung, traumatic pancreatitis, respiratory failure, hemorrhagic shock, internal bleeding and removal of the gallbladder, in addition to multiple soft tissue injuries.
While she will never be the same, we are glad that she got the money she deserved so that her medical needs will be met for years.
Rick Shapiro has practiced personal injury law for over 30 years in Virginia, North Carolina, and throughout the Southeastern United States. He is a Board-Certified Civil Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy (ABA Accredited) and has litigated injury cases throughout the eastern United States, including wrongful death, trucking, faulty products, railroad, and medical negligence claims. During his three-decade career, Shapiro has won client appeals before the VA Supreme Court, VA Court of Appeals, NC Supreme Court, SC Supreme Court, WV Supreme Court, TN Supreme Court, and three times before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, underscoring Shapiro’s trial achievements. In addition, he and his law firm have won settlements/verdicts in excess of $100 million. His success in and out of the courtroom is a big reason why he was named 2019 “Lawyer of the Year” in railroad law in U.S. News & World Report's Best Lawyers publication (Norfolk, VA area), and he has been named a “Best Lawyer” and “Super Lawyer” by those peer-reviewed organizations for multiple years. Rick was also named a “Leader in the Law, Class of 2022” by Virginia Lawyers Weekly (total of 33 statewide honorees consisting of lawyers and judges across Virginia). And in September 2023, Rick was selected as a recipient of the National Board of Trial Advocacy (NBTA) 2023 President’s Award. Although many nominations were submitted from across the country, Rick was just one of eight attorneys chosen by the prestigious National Board which certifies civil trial attorneys across the U.S. Rick was also recently named to Virginia Lawyers Weekly 2024 Virginia’s Go To Lawyers Medical Malpractice. The attorneys awarded this honor are nominated by their colleagues and chosen by a panel from the publication.
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