A Stuyvesant High School alumni who became a quadriplegic after a school van accident is getting a lot of money for her terrible misfortune. Valerie Piro, now 22 and a junior at Harvard University, was awarded $8.5 million—far short of the $300 million she sued for, but still nothing to sniff at.
Piro was injured back in 2008 after a van carrying the Stuyvesant High School track team veered into the median and rolled over on I-91 in Vermont and flipped multiple times. The Ford van, rented out by Avis, was driven by the team's coach, Erin Taylor. Despite wearing a seatbelt, Piro was still ejected from the van; Taylor and another student were seriously injured. It later emerged the trip was not authorized by the school, though Taylor told her boss and had received parental consent.
According to the Post, after the accident "Piro, with no feeling from her chest down, took the SATs while rehabbing and got a near-perfect score." Her lawyer says that the settlement, which was paid out this month, is one of the city's highest.
