Florida Injury Lawyer Blawg
A Pennsylvania teen sprang into action after her school bus driver had a medical emergency and the whole thing was caught on tape, according to reporting from Fox 13 News – Tampa Bay.
The incident happened on Friday, Sept. 18, in Hollidaysburg, a borough in Blair County, Pennsylvania. Bus surveillance footage shows children walking up the aisle of the bus to get off at their stop. The bus slowly begins moving, with the line of students hesitating and looking at their driver in confusion.
After a brief, flummoxing moment, the students discover that their driver is suffering from a medical emergency.
That is when 10th-grader Alexis Smith can be seen jumping up from her seat to locate the brakes of the school bus, bringing the hulking vehicle to a sudden stop. Students then called for help via the bus radio.
Since the footage was posted online, Alexis has been praised for her heroism, according to Fox 13. The school district even applauded her courage in a social media post.
Thankfully, both the driver and the children aboard the bus did not suffer any injuries. Tragically, in 50 years representing the victims of motor vehicle accidents in Florida, our attorneys know that that is not always the case. In all, the state has had 255,577 crashes this year as of Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. These crashes have resulted in 1,781 fatalities and 164,360 injuries, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ Crash Dashboard. About 9,361 of these incidents have involved pedestrians, resulting in 379 deaths.
Leesfield & Partners
Dangers on the road abound in today’s digital world. Whether from failures in automotive driving technology, texting and driving, or driving while intoxicated, the numbers show that crashes are not at all uncommon. As a personal injury law firm with five decades of experience handling the cases for injured drivers and grieving families throughout the state, our attorneys know just how dangerous the road can be. Our skilled trial attorneys have handled just about every case of injury that can occur on Florida’s roads, securing the best possible outcome on behalf of every client. Over the years, and in several cases, Leesfield & Partners has obtained record verdicts and settlements on behalf of clients, earning the firm state and nationwide recognition.
Among those verdicts is the largest verdict in Miami-Dade County history for a motor vehicle accident and the fourth-largest of its kind in the state.
That case involves the tragic death of a family’s daughter and the catastrophic injury to their son at the hands of a reckless drunk driver who was speeding down the wrong side of I-95. The family was on their way to the airport to drop off their daughter, 23, for a flight to attend her medical school’s orientation. She died as a result of the collision.
Their son sustained life-altering injuries and was left unable to speak, needing a wheelchair, and requires round-the-clock care. This driver’s careless and negligent actions changed the lives of this unwitting family forever after he was overserved at a popular Miami bar.
At trial, a jury awarded over $95 million to the family — $57 million of which would go to the son and the remaining $38 million to the parents.
Previous Cases
In a previous and tragic Leesfield & Partners case, a child’s life was forever changed one morning when he was hit by a speeding driver while trying to board his school bus. The boy’s school bus driver instructed him to cross the street while stopped in the middle of the road instead of as far to the right as possible. The driver also instructed our client and other children to cross the street where there was no designated crosswalk.
Trusting their school bus driver, the group of children began to cross the street. A speeding driver then hit our client, causing him to be knocked unconscious and needing to be airlifted to the hospital where doctors diagnosed him with a traumatic brain injury.
Not only should the speeding driver have taken more care, but an investigation by Leesfield & Partners revealed that the school bus driver was in violation of state law by failing to ensure there was at least 200 feet of visibility in the direction of oncoming traffic. She also failed to stop in the lane that was the furthest to the right and instead stopped in a middle lane, leaving the children vulnerable to this kind of incident.
Partner Justin B. Shapiro secured a confidential settlement for the minor and his family, which was over the insurance coverage of the at-fault vehicle.
Previously, Leesfield & Partners obtained an $8.5 million settlement following a $27 million arbitration award for the family of a young woman who was killed by a pickup truck driver while attempting to cross the street. The woman, a wife and mother of two, was visiting Florida from her home in Toronto, Canada, when she was crushed by a pickup truck. The driver in that case claimed to not have seen her.
The firm secured a $6 million settlement for a woman who was violently hit by a car as she walked back to her office following a midday break. The woman had the right-of-way as she walked through a marked crosswalk. Despite this, a pickup truck driver made an illegal left turn and slammed into her, claiming to not have seen our client despite the clear traffic signs.
Her injuries included a series of skull fractures, brain hemorrhages and injuries to her left leg.
Mr. Shapiro handled this case and secured the maximum recoverable amount for the injured client.
In one case out of Key West, a driver distracted by adjusting their car’s GPS crashed into a bicyclist stopped on the shoulder of the Overseas Highway. The bicyclist suffered multiple life-threatening injuries from the accident. A $5.35 million settlement was reached by Leesfield & Partners attorneys.
The firm represented another pedestrian in a case against a negligent driver that resulted in a $2.9 million recovery amount.
Leesfield & Partners represented a family whose loved one was a pedestrian who died as the result of injuries sustained in a crash with a negligent driver. The firm recovered over $1.3 million for the family in that case.
In another pedestrian case, this time involving a minor, Leesfield & Partners settled for $1.2 million. The child in this case was crossing the street when he was hit by a speeding driver. The child in this case suffered a traumatic brain injury from hitting his head on the pavement.
Motor Vehicle Accident Cases
In the case of a 27-year-old motorcyclist who suffered severe and life-altering injuries due to a defect with his kickstand, the firm obtained a $19.8 million award. As our client was traveling on his motorcycle, the kickstand suddenly engaged, causing it to spin out of control and rendered him a high-level quadriplegic.
Mr. Leesfield spent approximately two decades working on cases in which clients were severely injured or killed because of issues with a motorcycle kickstand, resulting in manufacturing changes that have saved countless lives.
The firm handled another case out of Key West which involved the permanent injury and disfigurement of a man riding a scooter who was hit by an ambulance. The man had a green light and, as he crossed the intersection, was hit by an ambulance and thrown into a cement wall. The man was airlifted to the hospital and was hospitalized for 12 days while he received treatment. In addition to multiple broken bones in his face and injuries to his teeth, the man’s back was fractured in three places. One vertebra was almost completely crushed in the incident. The ambulance driver said that because he was on the way to an emergency, he had the right of way, but no lights or siren signaled that he was in the middle of an emergency that would prompt other drivers on the road to yield to his emergency vehicle or know that he would not stop at the red light.
Attorneys with the firm secured a $2.1 million award for the client in that case.
The firm previously worked on a case involving a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy and his son who were involved in a crash on Overseas Highway. The other driver failed to yield and pulled out right in front of the father and son’s car, causing the high-speed crash. Security footage from nearby businesses and dashboard data concluded that the deputy was not speeding at the time of the crash. The other driver’s insurance company tendered its $300,000+ policy limits.
Evan Robinson, a Leesfield & Partners Trial Lawyer, secured a six-figure settlement of a combined bodily injury award and uninsured motorist policy coverage for a client injured while on the road in Monroe County.
Bernardo Pimentel, a Trial Attorney at the firm, secured a confidential amount for the family of a young boy who was hit by a car when it crashed through the front of a Florida discount store where he was shopping with his mother.
Mr. Shapiro and Trial Attorney Eric Shane represented a Key West man who was injured following a serious crash with a driver who failed to stop at a stop sign. As a result, our 46-year-old client, who was on a motor scooter, suffered multiple injuries. With an auto insurance policy of about $10,000, began to explore other avenues of liability for their client and discovered that the driver was unable to see oncoming traffic due to overgrown vegetation on the property adjacent to the intersection, a violation of Key West’s city ordinances.
Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Shane obtained a $1.32 million recovery for the injured client.
