Tom Pope III, with Hasty Pope. (Courtesy photo)

A woman who suffered a permanent injury on a MARTA bus when a hydraulic wheelchair ramp closed on her foot reached a $1.65 million settlement with the carrier as the case was readying for trial.

Tom Pope III with Hasty Pope said the case was complicated by the fact that his client suffered no broken bones in the accident, but experienced soft-tissue damage that developed into complex regional pain syndrome.

She ultimately had to have a neuromuscular nerve stimulator implanted in order to control the pain and has been unable to work since the 2016 accident.

According to Pope and an account of the accident, his client Cathy Burdin was a passenger on a bus being driven by a trainee under the supervision of an experienced driver.

After the bus stopped in College Park, Burdin stepped to the front to get off as the driver activated a hydraulic lift at the top of the steps to raise the wheelchair ramp.

Burdin, then 52, stumbled over the lift and the trainee driver deactivated it, causing it to lower and crush her left foot.

Pope said onboard video showed that the lift remained on her foot for 5 or 10 seconds.

"Finally the supervisor, who was outside, came and physically lifted it off," said Pope. "The trainee was just frozen like a deer in the headlights."

Pope said Burdin sat holding her foot for 15 minutes or so until an ambulance came for her.

Burdin, a contract hotel maintenance worker, experienced continuous sharp pain in her foot.

A nerve conduction study indicated that she had CRPS. An Emory neurosurgeon implanted the neurostimulator, which Pope said helps provide longer lasting relief from some but not all of the pain.

Her doctors testified that her injury was permanent and that she "would live with some level of pain in her foot for the remainder of her life," Pope said.

In 2017, Burdin sued MARTA in Fulton County State Court.

Pope said MARTA admitted that the driver trainee had accidentally raised the ramp thinking he was activating the control that lowers or "kneels" the bus when passengers are boarding or deboarding.

"However, they denied this caused a hazardous or unsafe condition," said Pope, arguing that Burdin should have heard a warning beeper when the ramp was activated.

MARTA never admitted Burdin was injured, he said, despite testimony from a pain specialist and two neurosurgeons that she had CRPS.

MARTA retained two experts, one of whom "admitted that Mrs. Burdin was correctly diagnosed with CRPS, but was not a candidate for a neuromuscular implant procedure."

The other testified that she did not have CRPS at all, said Pope. On cross-examination, the expert said that "in all the cases he had worked on, he had never found an injured person to have the diagnosis of CRPS," Pope said. "Neither physician had ever worked on behalf of an injured plaintiff, and both had experience working with MARTA."

The parties agreed to a settlement for $1.65 million in late January, shortly before a scheduling conference to set a trial date.

The settlement has been paid and the final documents are being distributed this week, Pope said.

MARTA staff attorney Vincent Hyman did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.