LITTLE ROCK — Nancy Chu's brain slid around in her head like a bowl of gelatin being bumped into a wall when American Airlines Flight 1420 crash-landed 22 months ago, her psychiatrist testified Tuesday. He said she will never be the same.
Chu can still talk and smile and be animated in conversations, but she has memory damage and cognitive dysfunction that could prevent her from holding a job in the securities industry, her psychiatrist and a neuropsychologist said, according to evidence presented Tuesday in the second day of her damages trial against the airline in U.S. District Court in Little Rock.
Before the June 1, 1999, crash, Chu was a sales assistant to the top-producing brokers at the Little Rock office of Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc. For a while, she worked directly under Mark Lee, the company's most productive broker.
Lee testified Tuesday that he had recruited Chu to the $34,000-a-year job because he considered her talented and upwardly mobile.
Diana McBride, operations manager for Morgan Keegan, said Chu had passed a test to sell stocks and bonds in late 1998. She said Chu was "sought after" by other brokers and had the desire and potential to be a top performer who could earn $125,000 or more.
On a scale of 1 to 10, McBride said, Chu was a "10."
After the crash, Chu's attendance and performance seriously deteriorated, and she was demoted to strictly clerical functions. Even then, Chu made mistakes; she couldn't even route e-mail correctly. By June, when she took medical leave, Chu had become a "2," McBride said.
Chu, 37, was not present in court. Judge Henry Woods had excused her Monday, and psychiatrist and neurologist Gregory Kaczenski told the jury why Tuesday. He said he had recommended she not listen to the testimony because it was full of comments about how low she had sunk since the crash, words that would not aid her recovery.
Almost all of Flight 1420's 129 surviving passengers have exhibited marked personality changes since the crash, so Kaczenski is a key witness for Chu.
Chu went to see him a month after the crash complaining of anxiety and depression. She said she was becoming increasingly upset when storms hit.
Flight 1420 crashed during a thunderstorm, overrunning the runway, plowing through a light standard and falling over a 25-foot embankment before breaking in half and burning. Eleven people died, including the pilot.
Chu did not tell Kaczenski that the woman sitting behind her, Judy Thacker, died in the crash. Thacker's massive injuries included multiple fractures of the larynx, which made it impossible for her to breathe.
Chu also did not tell Kaczenski or her family doctor that she was sexually involved with an American Airlines employee who had been sent to help her cope with the accident. The relationship lasted eight months; only after it was over did Chu reveal it to her doctors.
Kaczenski said he believed that Chu was holding back details of the crash and information about her relationship with American Airlines employee Jim Strothers because of post-traumatic stress disorder and/or a brain injury.
He testified that he ordered tests to determine if she had sustained a brain injury only after he learned from her lawyers that she had been performing badly at work. That was 10 months after the crash.
He said the tests showed that Chu's brain had slid forward in her skull, then back, causing microscopic tears that have altered her personality. American Airlines' lawyers challenge that finding.
The trial continues today.
Copyright © 2001, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.