Woman run over by DPW truck reaches settlement with city of Baltimore

Baltimore’s spending board has approved a $350,000 settlement with a woman who was run over and seriously injured by a Department of Public Works truck that was carrying trash bags at the Inner Harbor.

The city’s Board of Estimates agreed to settle with the woman, Rachel Bloom, at its meeting Wednesday.

Bloom, a Baltimore resident, brought the lawsuit earlier this year. The complaint claimed that Bloom was walking along the Baltimore Waterfront Promenade at the Inner Harbor on Aug. 11, 2020, when the truck ran her over.

The pickup truck was being operated by a city employee, Reginald Harris, who was emptying trash cans around the Inner Harbor. Bloom was walking near Harborplace at about 8:30 a.m. when Harris reversed the truck without confirming the area behind it was clear, according to the complaint.

The truck’s flatbed was full of trash bags that were blocking Harris’s view, Bloom’s lawyer wrote. The truck hit Bloom and knocked her to the ground, according to the complaint, but Harris did not notice he had struck her until bystanders caught his attention.

Bloom had become trapped under the vehicle, which Harris then had to drive forward in order to free her.

“Mrs. Bloom suffered significant injuries including, but not limited to, a fracture of her right shoulder, a punctured lung, displaced fractures of eight ribs in her back, and displaced fractures of six ribs on her side (fourteen rib fractures in total),” Bloom’s lawyer, Ryan S. Perlin, wrote in the complaint.

The lawsuit accused the city of negligence for operating a vehicle on a pedestrian walkway and failing to equip the truck so that the driver could see behind the vehicle.

Deputy Solicitor Ebony Thompson told Baltimore’s Board of Estimates Wednesday that DPW now uses plastic pushcarts to collect trash on the promenade instead of trucks. The truck in this case was equipped with a backup camera but not an alarm, she said.

“We are actively working on an accident review policy,” Thompson said. “We want to be able to prevent as many accidents as possible.”

DPW Deputy Director Richard Luna said the employee, Harris, was spoken to about the incident but was not disciplined.

In an email, Perlin said that Bloom “is relieved to have resolved her lawsuit against the City. She hopes that it results in Baltimore City instituting positive safety measures for all of its drivers to prevent what happened to her from happening to others.”

City Comptroller Bill Henry asked a series of questions at Wednesday’s Board of Estimates meeting about the actions DPW has taken to prevent similar accidents in the future. Henry later told The Daily Record that his office has focused on ensuring that city agencies learn from mistakes that lead to financial settlements so they can be prevented in the future.

Preemptive fixes that could prevent these accidents, like driver awareness tools, are sometimes viewed as too expensive, he said, but could head off large financial settlements.

“We’re trying not to spend money we don’t have, and as a result, we find ourselves having to pay out money we don’t have,” Henry said. “I’d rather spend it to make sure people don’t get hurt than to compensate them after the fact.”