Victim offers details of injuries from Wesley Chapel bus crash

Marcus Button may have survived a horrific car accident but his parents testified today that the boy they had come to know as he grew up was lost in the crash.

"It's a whole different relationship," said Button's father, Mark. "I had to develop a new relationship with this different personality. It's like the son I raised for 16 years was gone and what was left was the body of Marcus Button but a new personality."

Mark Button, his wife Robin and Marcus took the stand Wednesday in their civil lawsuit against the Pasco County school system. The Buttons, of Wesley Chapel, sued the schools for negligence in 2007 after Marcus was seriously injured in a crash with a school bus.

The bus driver, John E. Kinne, was cited for failing to yield the right of way. The trial began last week and could continue into next week.

Today, the jury heard just how seriously Marcus Button was injured in the Sept. 22, 2006, crash.

He spent nearly three months in the hospital recovering and going through rehabilitation. He had to relearn to walk but even now can't walk for any substantial length of time without pain.

Marcus lost most of the sight in his right eye, can no longer smell, has limited ability to taste and can't feel textures. Brain damage he sustained in the wreck has caused him to see and hear things that weren't there, to talk with a British and a Southern accent and to become paranoid.

Marcus, formerly a strapping youth, has been reduced a shell of his former physical self. Facial fractures have left one side of his face higher than the other.

"It doesn't look good, and it doesn't feel good," Marcus testified Wednesday. "It doesn't make me feel unique. It makes me feel like a freak. Nobody else's face in the world looks like mine. Know why? Cause they didn't get hit in the face with a 16 1/2-ton bus."

All that medical care costs money. An economist who testified Wednesday estimated Marcus' future care will cost between $6 million and $10 million. The Buttons are hoping a jury finds the school board negligent and awards them damages to help pay for their son's past and future medical expenses.

The economist also testified that Marcus' inability to work in the future will cost him between $365,000 and $570,000 in lost wages. There is no cap on the damages the jury can award, but anything exceeding $200,000 would have to be approved by the Florida Legislature as a claims bill.

On the morning of the accident, Marcus' friend, Jessica Juettner, picked him up at his home. Juettner and Marcus were students at Wesley Chapel High School at the time. As Juettner drove her Dodge Neon west on State Road 54, Marcus realized he had left his wallet at home.

Juettner turned the car around and headed back west on S.R. 54. But as the Neon approached Meadow Pointe Boulevard, the school bus pulled out in front of it. Juettner slammed on the brakes, but it was too late and the vehicles collided. Juettner suffered only minor injuries. She sued the school board but settled her claim earlier this year, according to court records.

Attorneys for the schools maintain Marcus sustained more serious injuries because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. In her testimony last week, Juettner said she couldn't be 100 percent sure Marcus was wearing his seatbelt that morning.

But Wednesday, Marcus testified unequivocally that he had put it on.

"Oh yeah, I had my seatbelt on," he said. "It was a natural habit."