The family of a Bergenfield girl whose right foot was badly mangled in a Macy’s escalator at the Westfield Garden State Plaza will receive $15 million in a settlement filed this week in federal court — almost three years after surgeons saved her foot in what was described as a rare procedure considering her extensive injuries.
Juliana Valdez, now 13, “has made a miraculous recovery” after losing two toes in an accident that caused her to suffer respiratory and kidney failure and undergo a total of 22 surgeries, her attorney, Samuel L. Davis, said in a telephone interview Wednesday night. He provided details of the settlement, including the amount to be paid to the family, adding that he rejected the defendants’ requests for a confidentiality clause that would have kept the details from the public. Escalator Handrail Design
Related: Rare surgery saves Bergenfield girl's foot after horrific escalator accident
Juliana, who was hospitalized for three months after the accident and whose surgery and recovery was the subject of a Record article in 2013, now walks with only a “slight limp,” he said.
Federal documents show a settlement hearing was held in federal court in Newark on Monday and a judge closed the case that same day. Davis said Macy’s and the company that performed maintenance on its escalators, ThyssenKrupp, both agreed to the settlement but did not admit liability. The family alleged in its lawsuit that Macy’s failed to properly maintain the escalator, which had been installed in 1958, and thereby contributed to the accident.
Related: Macy's escalator accident prompts Paramus to sue inspection company
“I think the settlement can be judged by its size as to whether Macy’s felt culpable in its conduct,” Davis said.
The Record reported in 2013 that a state inspection certification for the escalator had expired prior to the accident, and that months earlier a Macy’s manager halted an inspection that was only partly completed, saying it was disrupting the store, according to state records. An inspector said in a report that steps on at least one of the store’s escalators was not running smoothly and needed maintenance.
On the day of the accident, Juliana had been on a back-to-school shopping trip with her mother and brother and was riding the escalator up to the second floor when her right leg appeared to be “swallowed up” to midcalf, according to a Paramus police report. The family has said her foot was caught in the stairs and dragged through a comb plate at the top of the escalator. Davis said “a bystander” pressed an emergency stop button.
After the accident, Macy’s upgraded all the escalators in the store and added a safety device that automatically shuts them down when anything becomes stuck in the mechanism, ThyssenKrupp told The Record in 2013.
Elina Kazan, a Macy’s spokeswoman, said in an email on Thursday that she could not provide a statement about the settlement because “To my understanding the case is still in litigation.” She did not respond to a request for clarification. It was unclear whether Macy’s was involved in other litigation related to the same incident.
The Valdez suit was brought to a close when a federal judge, Cathy L. Waldor, signed final judgment orders Monday and filed them Tuesday, according to court records. However, the settlement details remained sealed, according to a court official, because the filing included information about minors.
A ThyssenKrupp spokeswoman, Kellie Harris, issued a statement Thursday acknowledging the company reached a “voluntary settlement agreement” that matched “the compensation that the family requested.” She added that “our heart continues to go out to Miss Valdez and her family about this tragic accident.” Macy’s, Harris said, is no longer a customer after a maintenance service contract expired last year.
Juliana’s father, Juan Valdez, said on Thursday that his daughter “is doing really good, thank God,” although she has not yet been able to resume playing soccer, her favorite sport. Juliana said in 2013 that the ordeal spurred her desire to become an orthopedic surgeon. Her father said she had been getting good grades in school but that the family was not ready to speak in depth following the settlement.
The amount of the settlement appears large compared to other agreements resulting from similar accidents.
Eight people injured in a 2007 Giants Stadium escalator malfunction, including a man whose leg was amputated below the knee, were given a total of $2 million by the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority to settle a lawsuit in 2012. They received an undisclosed amount of money from the company that maintained the escalator.
In 2013, Macy’s agreed to pay $520,000 to the family of a Wantage girl who lost a toe when she was 10 years old and riding in a store escalator in the Paramus Park mall in 2009, federal court records have shown.
Juliana told The Record in a 2013 interview that she was “scared” after the accident and worried that her foot would be amputated. But a trauma surgeon who happened to look in on her at Hackensack University Medical Center, Sanjeev Kaul, said he had a “gut” feeling it could be saved, despite looking “like a tank had rolled over her foot.” A team of surgeons performed a surgery known as a free flap, using tissue from one part of the body to repair another. Kaul said at the time that it had been attempted only “in a handful of cases around the world with patients with such extensive injuries.”
Davis, the Valdez family’s attorney, issued a statement Thursday providing additional comment on the settlement and highlighting the efforts of Kaul and a team of surgeons that included plastic surgeon William Boss and pediatric orthopedist David Forsh. He also said that there were “a number of similar incidents” involving the same escalator in the two years leading up to Juliana’s accident. Just one day prior to her accident, he said, another customer’s shoe had been caught in the mechanism.
Rubber Handrail Grips For Escalators The statement did not identify Juliana by name but quoted her talking about the surgery that saved her foot: “I want to study medicine and become an orthopedic surgeon when I grow up,” she said in the statement. “My experience with almost losing my foot has taught me how dedicated doctors can give someone back a life. I would like to do the same for other injured children.”