Greyhound ordered to compensate victim of crash caused by attack on driver

By Jim Greene

Published on August 17, 2005

The attacker was among seven passengers who died as a result of the Oct. 3, 2001 crash. The driver survived the attack; more than 30 others were injured.

Sharon Surles, a Michigan resident, received the award after the jury listened to a week of testimony and deliberated for about three hours. Other lawsuits related to the crash have been filed in Georgia.

The bus was traveling through Manchester, Tennessee, on its way from Chicago to Orlando, Florida. It was about 4:00 a.m. when Damir Igric, a Croatian national, attacked driver Garfield Sands, inflicting two 5-inch-long, 2-inch-deep cuts to his neck. Igric died at the scene.

Surles was hospitalized for more than a month and is permanently disabled, unable to walk. Her attorney, Andrew Berke, said her medical costs have totaled about $1.6 million.

During the trial, Berke presented evidence that in the four years before the crash, Greyhound had experienced at least 43 cases of a passenger attempting to assault a driver or grab the steering wheel of a moving bus. He said that the company had nothing to protect drivers and discouraged them from removing suspicious passengers from buses.

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