Missy H.

On her way to her daughter’s kindergarten graduation in 2009, Missy H. passed through the wrong intersection at just the wrong time. Two men who had recently robbed a bank in St. Paul Park were fleeing the police, and they drove straight through a red light and barreled into Missy’s driver’s side door at somewhere between 90 and 120 mph. She was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for traumatic brain injury, trauma to both sides of her jaw, soft tissue muscle damage, mild neurological issues and damage to her hip, back and neck. A devoted teacher of 3^rd graders, Missy checked out of the hospital and toughed out the last week of school, but her health complications soon began to multiply. A friend of her husband told him it was time to contact an attorney. He recommended Burke & Thomas.

“When I contacted Burke & Thomas, I was at a point where the pain was getting uncomfortable and I was getting overwhelmed by the insurance. I connected with him at a time when I really needed somebody to swoop in and take charge of a lot of complicated things. John was very knowledgeable and thorough, and I immediately felt that I could put things in his hands and he would squash any problems that popped up.

“It was going to be a long process – John let me know that up front. He was very honest, and everything was true to what he said. At times it was hard to navigate through the different pieces of the legal process, but John laid it out quickly and simply. He helped my husband and I know what we needed to know. He was confident and reassuring with the whole process, which to the average person is just very complicated. He allowed me to take that off my plate and focus on healing.

“Over the course of about 3 years, I had something like 120 visits to doctors or specialists. In the process of it all I was getting migraine headaches, grinding my teeth and experiencing post-traumatic stress. I had a hard time sleeping. A year and a half into my treatment, I had a CAT scan and the doctors discovered that I had an aneurysm in the left internal carotid artery on the side of my face where the majority of the trauma from the accident was. We couldn’t tell whether it was caused by the accident, by the treatment or whether it was just something that had never been discovered. Through all of that, John was very supportive. With every new issue that came up, he showed genuine concern and compassion and really just grabbed the ball and ran with it.

“It took three years, but John was able to get the maximum settlement for me. The insurance company was saying one thing, but John would not take less than the full amount because of what I had been through and the future of what may come for me. He was very persistent and professionally aggressive, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Long after the attorney-client part had ended, John was still really good about following up on a personal level, which was really nice and unexpected. He has a warmth about him that made him very personable and very enjoyable to work with and talk with. My husband and I are both really social people, and we’ve told everybody we know how great it was to work with John Burke.”