Missouri City to Pay Kansas Teen $2.98 Million for Police Chase Injuries

By Jim Greene

Published on January 20, 2006

Emma Rothbrust, 17, of Overland Park, Kan. suffered critical injuries in the November 2004 crash in Leawood, Kan., about four miles east-southeast of Overland Park. Two officers from Grandview, Mo., about 11 miles southeast of Leawood, were pursuing a vehicle that had been reported stolen when one officer drove his car through a red light and crashed broadside into the car in which Rothburst was riding.

The lawsuit, filed last March in Johnson County, Kan., District Court, named as defendants the city of Overland Park, Officers Douglas Blodgett and Brian Blessing, a sergeant who supervised the chase, and Robert Beckers, then Overland police chief.

Florian Rothbrust, the injured girl's father, said the settlement would pay for her medical care, including half a dozen surgeries for a shattered pelvis, a broken leg bones, broken ankles, and punctured, torn, and bruised lungs, heart, kidney, and bladder. He said his daughter was unable to walk for several months after the crash.

Officers Blessing and Blodgett were convicted of misdemeanor reckless driving for their actions in the chase.

The settlement included no admission of wrongdoing on the part of the defendants.

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