Two People Critically Injured on I-20 Near Exit 278 in Abilene — What Happens Now Determines Everything
If you are reading this from a hospital waiting room, a hallway outside an ICU, or a kitchen table at 2 a.m. with a phone full of missed calls from numbers you do not recognize — stop for a moment. We are going to tell you what is true, what is already happening on the other side, and what you need to protect in the next 72 hours. Not to pressure you. To arm you.
Two people were critically injured in a crash on Interstate 20 near Exit 278 in Abilene, Texas. That is what we know from the public reporting. What we do not yet know — what no one knows yet — is whether a commercial vehicle was involved, how many vehicles were part of the collision, what the road and weather conditions were, or who was operating what. The investigating agency is still assembling the crash report. Those facts are coming, and when they arrive, they will decide the entire trajectory of any legal claim. But the evidence that will tell us what actually happened on that stretch of I-20 is already beginning to disappear. That is the clock we need you to understand.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are a Texas trial firm that handles commercial-vehicle crashes, catastrophic injuries, and wrongful-death cases. We are writing this page as a resource for anyone affected by a crash like the one near Exit 278 — the governing law, the evidence that dies fast, the insurance playbook that is already running, and the honest range of what a case like this can be worth. If the firm is the right fit for your family, we will tell you. If it is not, we will tell you that too. The consultation is free, and we do not get paid unless we win your case. That is not a slogan — it is the fee structure, and we will explain exactly how it works before this page is done.
The I-20 Corridor Through Abilene — Why Exit 278 Is a Known Conflict Zone
Interstate 20 runs east-west through Abilene in Taylor County, serving as one of the major commercial freight arteries connecting the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex to Midland-Odessa and the West Texas oilfields. This is not a quiet highway. It carries a heavy mix of high-speed through freight — 18-wheelers, tankers, flatbeds hauling equipment and materials to and from the Permian Basin — alongside local commuter traffic that enters and exits at interchanges spaced through the urban stretch. Exit 278 falls within that urban interstate segment, where the roadway has to serve two masters: through-traffic moving at or near 75 mph and local traffic slowing to negotiate exit and merge ramps. That conflict — a passenger car decelerating for an exit while a fully loaded commercial vehicle is still moving at highway speed behind it — is one of the most well-documented crash patterns on urban interstate interchanges.
The Abilene District of TxDOT maintains this segment of I-20. Any crash at this exit interchange warrants investigation of the ramp design, the visibility and placement of signage, the lane-striping configuration, and TxDOT’s maintenance records for the area. Was there a known sight-line problem at this exit? Were merge lanes too short for the speed differential? Was signage adequate and visible? These are questions that the crash report may not answer but that a full investigation must ask — because if the road itself contributed to what happened, there is a governmental claim to evaluate, and that claim runs on a much shorter clock than most people realize.
Taylor County courts in Abilene handle the personal injury litigation arising from crashes on this corridor. The jury pool draws from a mixed urban-rural population with generally moderate-to-conservative leanings. That matters — it shapes how a case is presented, how damages are framed, and what arguments resonate with the twelve people who would decide what a critical injury is worth. A jury in Taylor County is a jury of the reader’s neighbors, and that is a fact we put to work.
Your Legal Rights After a Critical-Injury Crash in Texas
Texas governs this crash. The law that applies is Texas tort law, and if a lawsuit is filed, it will be filed in Taylor County. Here is what that law actually says, in plain language, for someone who was critically injured or whose family member was critically injured on I-20.
The deadline to file. Texas requires that personal injury claims be filed within two years of the date of injury. That is the statute of limitations — the hard deadline. Miss it, and the claim is gone, no matter how strong it was. Two years sounds like a long time when you are sitting in a hospital room. It is not. Building a catastrophic-injury case — obtaining medical records, retaining experts, completing discovery, negotiating with insurers — takes most of that two years, and the later the process starts, the more evidence has disappeared. The deadline is real, and it is firm.
If the road contributed. If TxDOT’s design or maintenance of the Exit 278 interchange played a role in this crash, a claim against the governmental entity falls under the Texas Tort Claims Act, which carries notice-of-claim deadlines that are materially shorter than the two-year limitations period. We cannot state the exact number of days without confirming the current statutory text, but the principle is critical: if a governmental entity may bear any share of responsibility, the notice clock starts almost immediately — and it is measured in weeks or months, not years. This is the deadline most families never hear about until it has already passed.
Comparative fault. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51 percent bar. In plain English: if you were partly at fault for the crash, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault — and if you are found to be 51 percent or more at fault, you cannot recover at all. This is exactly why the insurance adjuster works so hard in the first days after a crash to pin percentage points on the injured party. Every point of fault they can assign is money subtracted from the recovery — and if they can push that number to 51, the claim vanishes entirely. Understanding this rule is understanding the single most important reason not to give a recorded statement before you have spoken with a lawyer.
Texas applies modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar: a plaintiff cannot recover if found 51 percent or more at fault, and recovery is reduced by the plaintiff’s percentage of fault below that threshold.
Damage categories. Texas does not impose statutory caps on economic or non-economic damages in standard motor-vehicle negligence cases. That means the medical bills, the lost wages, the future medical care, the pain, the physical impairment, the disfigurement, the loss of enjoyment of life — all of it is recoverable at full value, with no artificial ceiling imposed by the legislature. If the defendant’s conduct rises to gross negligence — an extreme degree of risk taken with conscious indifference to the safety of others — exemplary (punitive) damages become available, though those are subject to statutory caps tied to the amount of economic damages awarded.
If the worst happens. If either victim does not survive, the legal posture shifts to wrongful-death and survival claims. These are governed by separate Texas statutes with distinct damage categories and a defined hierarchy of beneficiaries — surviving spouse, children, and parents — who are entitled to bring the claim. A survival action captures the damages the victim accrued between the injury and death: the pain, the medical costs, the fear. A wrongful-death action compensates the family for what they lost: the financial support, the companionship, the guidance, the life that was taken. These are different claims with different plaintiffs and different damage theories, and they must be pleaded correctly from the start.
Who Can Be Held Liable — The Defendant Map
The confirmed facts from the public reporting are limited to the location and the severity of the injuries. No drivers, carriers, or vehicle types have been identified. That means every potential defendant in this analysis is a discovery target — someone or some entity to be identified and confirmed through the crash report, scene evidence, and investigation — not an established fact. Here is the liability map as it stands.
The at-fault driver. Whoever operated the vehicle that caused this crash — whether through failure to control speed, lane deviation, a right-of-way violation at the exit ramp, distracted driving, or impairment — bears direct negligence liability. Their identity will be confirmed through the Texas Peace Officer’s Crash Report (CR-3), which the investigating agency prepares and which typically becomes available within 5 to 14 days through the TxDOT CRIS system or the investigating agency directly.
The commercial carrier — if one was involved. I-20 through Abilene is heavily traversed by commercial motor carriers, including major national fleets and regional oilfield service trucks. If a commercial vehicle is confirmed as involved, the liability picture expands dramatically. The carrier is vicariously liable for its employee driver’s negligence under the doctrine of respondeat superior — if the driver was acting within the course and scope of employment, the company stands behind all of that driver’s share. But the carrier also faces direct negligence claims: negligent hiring, negligent training, negligent supervision, and negligent maintenance. Did the carrier put an unqualified or unfit driver behind the wheel? Did it fail to maintain the vehicle’s brakes, tires, or steering? Did its scheduling practices push the driver past safe hours of service? These are independent claims against the company itself, not just the driver, and they are where the real exposure lives.
The vehicle owner — if different from the driver. If the at-fault vehicle was owned by someone other than the driver — a leased vehicle, a borrowed vehicle, a company vehicle — Texas law may impose liability on the owner under negligent entrustment theories. This is a person or entity that knew or should have known that the driver was unfit to operate the vehicle safely and entrusted it anyway.
TxDOT or a contractor — remotely. If the road design, signage, or maintenance of the Exit 278 interchange contributed to this crash, TxDOT or a maintenance contractor may bear a share of liability. This is a remote theory — it requires evidence that the roadway itself was unreasonably dangerous and that the governmental entity knew or should have known — but it is a theory that must be evaluated early, because the notice-of-claim clock under the Texas Tort Claims Act is unforgiving.
The Evidence Clock — What Is Disappearing Right Now
This is the section we need you to read most carefully, because the evidence that will prove what happened on I-20 near Exit 278 is dying on a schedule measured in hours and days, not months. Every record listed here exists right now. Every record listed here can be legally destroyed, overwritten, or lost if no one demands its preservation. The preservation letter — the formal demand that evidence be kept — is the tool that freezes these records in place. It goes out the day you call, not after the insurance company finishes its investigation.
The Texas CR-3 Crash Report. The investigating agency is preparing the official crash report. This document identifies the drivers, the vehicles, any commercial carriers and their DOT numbers, road and weather conditions, citations issued, and the investigating officer’s assessment of contributing factors. It typically becomes available within 5 to 14 days. This is the first document that tells us whether a commercial vehicle was involved, who the carriers are, and what the initial fault assessment looks like. It is the starting point for everything.
Event Data Recorder (EDR) data — the black box. Every modern vehicle carries an event data recorder that captures pre-impact speed, braking input, steering input, seatbelt usage, and the forces of the collision itself. This data is the closest thing to an objective witness that exists. It is also volatile: if the vehicle is repaired, scrapped, or returned to its owner, the data can be overwritten or lost. A preservation letter directed to the vehicle’s owner — or to the commercial carrier, if one is involved — must go out within days, not weeks. Once that letter is on file, the legal consequences of destruction become severe: the jury may be instructed to assume the lost evidence was as damaging as the plaintiff says it was.
Scene evidence — skid marks, debris, gouge marks, sightlines. The physical evidence at the crash scene is the most perishable evidence of all. Skid marks fade within days as traffic and weather wear them away. Debris is cleared immediately. TxDOT may remediate the scene — repairing guardrails, repainting lines, filling gouges — within hours of the crash. If scene photographs and measurements were not taken by the investigating agency or by someone at the scene, that evidence may already be gone. An accident reconstructionist can still work from the crash report, vehicle damage, and EDR data, but the physical scene is irreplaceable.
Dashcam and surveillance footage. Any nearby business with exterior cameras, any passing vehicle with a dashcam, any commercial vehicle in the vicinity with a forward-facing camera system — all of it may have captured the crash sequence or the moments leading up to it. Business surveillance systems typically overwrite on a 24-to-72-hour cycle. Commercial dashcams may overwrite even faster. This footage exists right now, and within days it may be gone forever. A preservation letter to nearby businesses and a subpoena for any commercial vehicle telematics in the area are the tools — but they work only if deployed fast.
Cell phone records. If distracted driving was a factor — and it is a factor in a significant percentage of serious crashes — the at-fault driver’s cell phone records will show whether the phone was in use at the moment of impact. Carrier retention policies vary, and the records are not kept indefinitely. A preservation letter and subpoena are essential, and they must go out promptly before the carrier purges the data.
Electronic Logging Device (ELD) and telematics data — if a commercial vehicle was involved. If a commercial carrier is identified, the vehicle’s ELD system captured the driver’s hours-of-service compliance, speed history, hard-braking events, and route data. This data is governed by federal retention requirements, but carriers’ own retention policies may purge broader logs quickly. The ELD data is the proof of whether the driver was fatigued, whether the carrier’s scheduling was lawful, and whether the vehicle was being operated safely in the moments before the crash.
Medical records and imaging from the trauma response. The initial trauma-center records — the emergency department notes, the imaging studies, the surgical reports, the ICU documentation — are the most complete and accurate picture of the injuries as they existed in the acute phase. These records lock in the mechanism-of-injury correlation and the severity classification that will drive the damages case. They should be obtained early, while they are at their most complete, because later entries can reframe the clinical picture in ways that favor the defense.
If a Commercial Vehicle Was Involved — The Federal Regulatory Framework
I-20 through Abilene is a freight corridor. The presence of commercial motor carriers on this stretch is not occasional — it is constant. If the crash report identifies a commercial vehicle as involved, the case moves onto a different regulatory framework entirely, and that framework is where some of the most powerful evidence lives.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations — codified in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Parts 390 through 399 — govern commercial motor vehicle operation nationwide. These regulations cover driver qualification, hours of service, vehicle maintenance, cargo securement, and post-crash procedures. Texas adopts and enforces these federal standards through the Department of Public Safety’s commercial vehicle enforcement program. What this means in practice is that a commercial carrier involved in this crash is subject to a web of federal requirements that create discoverable records — records that a passenger-vehicle-only crash would never produce.
Driver qualification files. The carrier must maintain a file on every driver it employs, containing the driver’s commercial license, medical certification, driving record, road test results, and employment history. If the driver was unqualified — if the medical certificate was stale, if the driving record showed prior violations the carrier ignored, if there was no road test — that file is the proof.
Hours-of-service records. Federal law limits how many hours a commercial driver may operate without rest. The ELD data captures compliance with these limits. If the driver was over the legal limit — if the carrier’s scheduling or the driver’s own choices put a fatigued operator behind the wheel — the ELD data is the proof, and it is discoverable.
Pre-trip inspection records. The driver was required to conduct and document a pre-trip inspection of the vehicle’s brakes, tires, lights, steering, and coupling systems. If the inspection was skipped, falsified, or failed to catch a defect that contributed to the crash, those records — or their absence — are the proof.
Maintenance records. The carrier must maintain the vehicle to federal standards. Brake adjustments, tire replacements, steering repairs — all of it is documented, and all of it is discoverable. If the carrier deferred maintenance to save money and a mechanical failure contributed to the crash, the maintenance file is the proof.
These federal records are what separate a commercial-vehicle case from a passenger-car case. They are the reason a crash involving an 18-wheeler on I-20 can carry exponentially more value than the same crash between two passenger cars — not because the injuries are different, but because the regulatory framework creates a discoverable record of the carrier’s choices that a passenger-car defendant simply does not produce. If you want to understand how a commercial truck accident case is built, this is where it starts: the federal records that the carrier is required to keep and that we are entitled to demand.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook — What Is Already Happening
Here is what we know from sitting on both sides of this table. Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He sat in those rooms. He knows the plays. Now he sits on your side of the table, and the plays that used to be his playbook are now our counter-playbook.
Play 1: The friendly “just checking in” call. Within days of the crash — sometimes within hours — someone will call you or your family. The tone will be warm, concerned, sympathetic. They will say they just want to “check on you” and “get your side of what happened.” The call is recorded. Everything you say is being transcribed and catalogued for later use against you. If you say “I’m feeling okay” — and many people do, because adrenaline and shock mask pain in the first days — that statement will be produced at mediation to argue your injuries are not serious. If you describe the crash and get a detail wrong — and many people do, because memory is fractured after trauma — that inconsistency will be used to attack your credibility.
The counter: Do not take the call. Do not return the call. If an adjuster reaches you, say one sentence: “I am not prepared to give a statement at this time.” Then hang up. Direct all communication to your attorney. There is no legal obligation to give a recorded statement to the other party’s insurance company in the first days after a crash. Whatever they tell you, that is the truth.
Play 2: The fast settlement check. A check may arrive quickly — sometimes before the MRI results come back, sometimes before the full extent of the injuries is known. The check comes with a release attached. The release, once signed, extinguishes all claims against the at-fault party — not just the claim for the medical bills you have now, but the claim for the surgery you may need in two years, the lost earning capacity that will not become apparent until you try to return to work, the pain that will still be there when the settlement money is long gone.
The counter: Do not sign anything from an insurance company without having it reviewed by a lawyer. The purpose of a fast check is not generosity. It is to close the file before the true cost of the injuries becomes known. One night in a trauma ICU can exceed the policy limits of a standard passenger-vehicle liability policy. The adjuster knows this. The fast check is designed to make sure you never find out.
Play 3: The independent medical examination (IME). The insurance company may require you to be examined by a doctor of their choosing. This doctor is not independent — the insurance company selects and pays the doctor, and the doctor’s business model depends on producing reports that minimize or deny the plaintiff’s injuries. The IME report will be used to argue that your injuries are pre-existing, exaggerated, or unrelated to the crash.
The counter: Know what the IME is before you walk in. The examination may be brief — sometimes 15 minutes — and the doctor’s report may describe a far more thorough examination than actually occurred. Bring someone with you. Document what happened in the examination, how long it lasted, and what was actually done. Your own treating physicians — the doctors who actually care for you — carry far more weight than a doctor who examined you once for the insurance company.
Play 4: The social media and surveillance watch. The insurance company may monitor your social media accounts from the day of the crash forward. A photograph of you at a family gathering, a post about feeling “blessed” or “lucky,” a check-in at a restaurant — all of it can be taken out of context and presented as evidence that your injuries are not as serious as you claim. In serious cases, surveillance may include physical observation — a private investigator filming you outside your home or in public.
The counter: Set every social media account to private. Do not post about the crash, your injuries, your recovery, or your activities. Do not discuss the case online. Assume that everything you post will be seen by the insurance company and presented in the worst possible light. This is not paranoia — it is standard claims practice, and it happens in virtually every serious-injury case.
Play 5: The “you were partly at fault” argument. The adjuster will look for any fact that can be framed as your fault — you were changing lanes, you were in the other driver’s blind spot, you were going too fast for conditions. Under Texas’s modified comparative negligence rule, every percentage point of fault assigned to you reduces your recovery, and if they can push it to 51 percent, the claim disappears.
The counter: Do not discuss fault with anyone — not the other driver’s insurance company, not the other driver, not witnesses at the scene. Fault is a legal determination that will be made based on the crash report, the physical evidence, the EDR data, and the testimony of experts. Your offhand statement about what happened is the one piece of evidence the adjuster cannot get any other way — and that is why they want it from you before you have spoken to a lawyer.
What a Case Like This Is Worth — An Honest Range
We are going to give you the honest range, with the honest caveat: the confirmed facts are limited to the headline — location, severity, and incident type. No vehicle types, no carrier identity, no medical records, no crash report. The true value of this case cannot be assessed until those facts are obtained. What follows is a framework for understanding the range, not a prediction.
Low end: approximately $250,000. If this is a two-vehicle passenger-car crash with standard liability policy limits and moderate comparative-fault exposure, recovery may be limited to the available insurance coverage. Texas’s minimum liability coverage requirements for passenger vehicles are modest, and a single night in a trauma ICU can exceed them. At this end of the range, the challenge is not proving the injuries — it is finding the coverage to pay for them. Underinsured motorist coverage, medical payments coverage, and health insurance liens all become part of the recovery structure.
High end: $5,000,000 and above. If a commercial carrier is involved with clear liability, catastrophic injuries such as traumatic brain injury or spinal cord damage, and gross-negligence aggravators — a driver who was operating beyond legal hours-of-service limits, a carrier with a history of maintenance violations, a company that knowingly put an unfit driver behind the wheel — multi-million-dollar recoveries are consistent with comparable Texas interstate crash verdicts and settlements. At this end, the commercial carrier’s federal insurance requirements create coverage towers that dwarf passenger-vehicle policies, and the federal regulatory record creates the evidence of corporate negligence that drives the value.
What fills the gap between the low and high ends. The difference between a $250,000 case and a $5,000,000 case is not the severity of the injuries — critical injuries are catastrophic in either scenario. The difference is the defendant structure, the available coverage, and the evidence of aggravated conduct. Identifying whether a commercial carrier was involved is the single most important factual question for case value, and the answer comes from the crash report — which is why obtaining the CR-3 is the first priority.
The damages in a case like this are built from two streams. The economic stream includes emergency medical transport, hospitalization, surgical procedures, rehabilitation, future medical care, medications, durable medical equipment, lost wages, and diminished earning capacity — every dollar that has been spent and every dollar that will be spent, reduced to present value by a forensic economist. The non-economic stream includes physical pain, mental anguish, disfigurement, physical impairment, and loss of enjoyment of life — the human costs that no bill captures but that a Texas jury may compensate at full value, with no statutory cap in a standard motor-vehicle negligence case. If the case involves a brain injury, the non-economic stream may be the largest component, because the life the victim no longer gets to live is where the deepest losses live.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Medicine — What Critical Injuries Look Like Over Time
When the public reporting says two people were “critically injured,” that word carries a specific medical meaning. Critical injuries are injuries that pose an immediate threat to life. The victim is in an ICU, on a ventilator or receiving intensive monitoring, with vital signs that are unstable or deteriorating. The first 24 to 72 hours are the most dangerous — the period when secondary injuries, complications, and cascading failures can turn a survivable injury into a fatal one.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI). A critical-injury crash on an interstate can produce severe TBI through the mechanism of rapid deceleration — the brain accelerating and decelerating inside the skull, bruising against the interior surface, tearing neural connections, and swelling against the rigid cranial vault. Severe TBI may involve intracranial hemorrhage, contusions, and diffuse axonal injury — damage to the brain’s white matter that does not always appear on initial imaging but that produces profound cognitive, behavioral, and physical deficits. The family may see it before any scan sees it: the patient who does not recognize a spouse, who cannot find the words, who becomes agitated or combative, who cannot follow a simple command. These injuries are proven through neuropsychological testing, advanced imaging (including diffusion tensor imaging), and the testimony of people who knew the person before. The long arc of severe TBI is measured in years, not months — and the cost of care, rehabilitation, and support over a lifetime can be the largest single component of the damages case.
Spinal cord injury. A high-speed crash can produce spinal cord injury through fracture, dislocation, or penetrating trauma to the vertebral column. The severity depends on the level of the injury and whether it is complete or incomplete — whether all motor and sensory function below the injury is lost, or whether some function is preserved. A complete cervical spinal cord injury may produce quadriplegia — loss of motor and sensory function in all four limbs, loss of bowel and bladder control, loss of sexual function, loss of the ability to breathe without mechanical support. The lifetime cost of care for a spinal cord injury — the wheelchair, the modifications to the home, the attendant care, the medical complications that recur throughout the patient’s life — is measured in millions of dollars, and a life-care planner builds that cost stream year by year so the jury can see exactly what the future holds.
Internal organ damage. The forces in a high-speed interstate crash can produce rupture of the spleen, laceration of the liver, tearing of the bowel, and crush injuries to the kidneys. These injuries may not be immediately apparent — the patient may be conscious and talking in the emergency department while bleeding internally. Delayed diagnosis of intra-abdominal injury is a leading cause of preventable death after blunt trauma, and the trauma surgeon’s skill in recognizing and operating on these injuries within the golden hour is often the difference between survival and death.
Orthopedic injuries. Multiple fractures — pelvis, femur, tibia, upper extremity — are common in high-speed crashes. These injuries require surgical intervention (often multiple surgeries), prolonged immobilization, and extensive rehabilitation. Open fractures carry the risk of infection that can persist for years. Pelvic fractures are associated with significant blood loss and may involve damage to the urinary and reproductive systems. The orthopedic recovery may take 12 to 18 months, and the patient may never return to pre-injury function.
The psychological injuries. Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and adjustment disorders are common after critical-injury crashes — in both the victims and their families. The patient who cannot ride in a car without panic. The spouse who cannot sleep without checking that their partner is breathing. The child who saw the aftermath. These injuries are real, they are diagnosable, and they are compensable under Texas law. They are also the injuries the insurance company is most likely to dispute — which is why they must be documented by treating mental-health professionals from the earliest possible date.
The First 72 Hours — A Practical Roadmap
Here is what we need the family of a critically injured crash victim to do — and not do — in the first 72 hours. This is not a legal lecture. It is a triage list.
Hour 1 to 24: Medical first, always. The victim’s medical care is the absolute priority. Every decision about treatment, surgery, and intervention should be made in consultation with the treating physicians. The family’s job in the first 24 hours is to be present, to ask questions, to take notes, and to make sure the medical team has the full history. Nothing about the legal case matters if the medical outcome is not the best it can be.
Hour 24 to 48: Protect the evidence. While the victim is being treated, someone — a family member, a friend, an attorney’s investigator — needs to be working on evidence preservation. The crash report is being prepared. The vehicles are in a tow yard. The scene is being cleaned. The surveillance cameras near Exit 278 are overwriting. The preservation letters that freeze this evidence in place need to go out now, not next week. If the family is not in a position to handle this — and most families in an ICU waiting room are not — this is where a car accident lawyer who understands the evidence clock becomes essential.
Hour 48 to 72: Shut down the insurance communications. By the third day, the at-fault party’s insurance company has likely made contact. They may have called. They may have sent a letter. They may have offered a quick settlement. The family needs to understand that every conversation with the other side’s insurance company is a conversation designed to reduce the value of the claim. Direct all communication to your attorney. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not sign a release. Do not accept a check. Do not discuss fault. Do not post on social media. These are not suggestions — they are the actions that protect the claim while the family focuses on the victim.
What not to sign, say, or post. Do not sign any document from any insurance company without legal review. Do not discuss the crash with anyone other than your own attorney and your own medical providers. Do not post about the crash, the injuries, the recovery, or your activities on any social media platform. Do not discuss the case with the other driver, the other driver’s attorney, or the other driver’s insurance company. If you are unsure whether to do something, the answer is: do not do it until you have consulted with a lawyer.
When to call. If you have not spoken with an attorney by the 72-hour mark, you have not lost the case — but you have lost evidence that may not be recoverable. The preservation letters that freeze the EDR data, the surveillance footage, the cell phone records, and the commercial carrier’s federal records can only do their work if they are sent while the records still exist. The day you call is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
The Proof Story — How a Case Like This Is Built
Here is how a catastrophic-injury case from an I-20 crash is actually built, from the first week through resolution. This is the walk, not the summary.
Week one. The preservation demands go out — to the at-fault driver, to any commercial carrier, to nearby businesses with surveillance cameras, to the cell phone carriers. The vehicles are located and secured in their tow yards; no vehicle is released, repaired, or scrapped until the EDR data has been downloaded. The crash report is requested from the TxDOT CRIS system or the investigating agency. The initial medical records are obtained from the trauma center.
Weeks two through eight. The crash report arrives. It identifies the vehicles, the drivers, any commercial carriers, and the investigating officer’s assessment of contributing factors. If a commercial carrier is identified, the federal records demands go out: driver qualification files, hours-of-service logs, maintenance records, pre-trip inspection records, ELD data, telematics. An accident reconstructionist is retained to analyze the scene evidence, the vehicle damage, and the EDR data — to determine speed, braking, point of impact, and the causal sequence. A forensic toxicologist is retained if impairment is suspected.
Months two through six. The medical picture develops. The victim moves from the ICU to a rehabilitation facility, or to home with outpatient therapy, or to a long-term care setting. The treating physicians document the injuries, the treatment, the prognosis, and the functional limitations. If the injuries are catastrophic — TBI, spinal cord injury, multiple amputations — a life-care planner is retained to build the cost stream of future medical care, rehabilitation, equipment, and attendant care, year by year, for the victim’s expected life span. A forensic economist reduces that cost stream to present value.
Months six through eighteen. Discovery. The defendants produce their records. The depositions happen — the at-fault driver, the carrier’s safety director, the maintenance personnel, the responding officers, the witnesses. The defense’s experts are deposed. The plaintiff’s experts are deposed. The case takes its full shape.
Resolution. If the liability is clear and the damages are fully documented, a settlement demand is presented. In Texas, the Stowers doctrine provides that when a plaintiff presents a reasonable settlement demand within the defendant’s policy limits, the insurer has a duty to accept it if a reasonably prudent insurer would — and if the insurer wrongfully refuses and the case later produces a verdict exceeding the policy limits, the insurer becomes liable for the full excess. This is not a guarantee of settlement — it is a doctrine that shifts the risk of refusal onto the insurer. If the case does not settle, it is tried before a jury in Taylor County, and the jury decides what the injuries are worth.
Why Our Firm
We are not going to tell you we are the “best” or “top-rated” or “undefeated.” Those words mean nothing when you are sitting in an ICU waiting room. What we will tell you is who we are and what we actually do.
Ralph Manginello is our managing partner. He has been a licensed Texas attorney for 27 years — admitted November 6, 1998 — and is admitted to practice in federal court, including the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he learned to ask questions before he learned to argue, and he never stopped asking. He handles cases that involve commercial vehicles, catastrophic injuries, and wrongful death — the cases where the stakes are highest and the other side is best prepared. You can read more about Ralph and his background on his attorney page.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney. He was admitted to the Texas bar in 2012 and is also admitted to federal court. Before he joined this firm, he spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the side of the table that fights against injured people. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their valuation software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the IME doctor is selected, and how the surveillance works. Now he uses that knowledge for the people the insurance industry used to train him to fight against. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Learn more about Lupe here.
How the fee works. We handle personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis. That means we do not charge an hourly rate. Our fee is 33.33 percent of the recovery if the case settles before trial, and 40 percent if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free, and it is confidential. You will not receive a bill for the first conversation — or for any conversation. If we take the case and do not recover anything, you owe us nothing for our time.
What the first call feels like. When you call 1-888-ATTY-911, you will reach a live person — not an answering service, not a voicemail tree. We answer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, because we know that crashes do not happen during business hours. The first conversation is not a sales pitch. It is an assessment. We will listen to what happened, ask the questions that matter, and tell you honestly whether we think you have a case — and whether we think we are the right firm for it. If we are not, we will tell you. If we are, the next step is the preservation letters — and those go out the day you hire us.
Hablamos Español. Lupe conducts full consultations in Spanish. If your family communicates in Spanish, the consultation, the case updates, and the courtroom advocacy are all available in the language you actually speak — not through an interpreter, but directly. This is not a tagline. It is a commitment to serve your family in the language you think in.
If the Worst Happens — Wrongful Death and Survival Claims
If either victim does not survive, the legal posture shifts. We want to address this directly, because the families reading this page may be facing that possibility right now, and they need to know what changes.
Survival claims. A survival action is brought by the estate of the deceased person. It captures the damages that accrued between the moment of injury and the moment of death — the pain, the fear, the medical expenses, the lost wages. These damages belong to the estate, not to the surviving family members directly. A personal representative — appointed by the court — is the person Texas law authorizes to bring this claim.
Wrongful death claims. A wrongful death action is brought by the surviving statutory beneficiaries — the surviving spouse, the surviving children, and the surviving parents, in that order of priority. It compensates the family for what they lost: the financial support the deceased would have provided, the care, the companionship, the guidance, the love. The losses are both economic (the financial support that stopped) and non-economic (the human relationship that was taken). A wrongful death claim lawyer can walk the family through the machinery — the appointment of the personal representative, the filing of the survival and wrongful death claims, the coordination with the estate’s administration, and the protection of the beneficiaries’ interests.
The transition. If a victim’s condition deteriorates from critical to fatal, the legal case does not disappear — it transforms. The claims that existed as personal injury claims become survival claims, and the claims that the family did not have as bystanders they now have as statutory beneficiaries. The deadline — the two-year statute of limitations — does not reset. The clock that was running continues to run. This is why early preservation of evidence matters just as much in a case that may become a wrongful death as in a case that will not: the proof of what happened on I-20 near Exit 278 is the same proof regardless of whether the victims survive.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a lawsuit after a crash on I-20 in Abilene?
Texas requires that personal injury claims be filed within two years of the date of injury. If the crash occurred on August 10, 2026, the deadline to file a personal injury lawsuit is approximately August 10, 2028. If a governmental entity such as TxDOT may bear responsibility for a road design or maintenance issue at Exit 278, a separate and much shorter notice-of-claim deadline applies under the Texas Tort Claims Act — measured in weeks or months, not years. If either victim does not survive, the wrongful death and survival claims are subject to the same two-year deadline, running from the date of death (which may be different from the date of the crash).
What if I was partly at fault for the crash?
You can still recover. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51 percent bar. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, and if you are found to be 51 percent or more at fault, you cannot recover. This is why the insurance adjuster works so hard in the first days to get you to accept fault — even partial fault. Every percentage point they can assign to you is money subtracted from your recovery. You should not discuss fault with the other party’s insurance company under any circumstances.
What if a commercial truck was involved in the I-20 crash?
If a commercial motor vehicle was involved, the case expands significantly. The commercial carrier is subject to federal motor carrier safety regulations, which create discoverable records — driver qualification files, hours-of-service logs, maintenance records, ELD data, and telematics. The carrier carries substantially higher insurance coverage than a passenger vehicle — federal minimum requirements for commercial motor vehicles are far higher than state minimums for passenger cars. The carrier may face both vicarious liability for its driver’s negligence and direct liability for its own hiring, training, supervision, and maintenance decisions. The crash report — the Texas CR-3 — is the document that will identify whether a commercial vehicle was involved and, if so, which carrier.
Should I give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company?
No. There is no legal obligation to give a recorded statement to the other party’s insurance company in the first days after a crash. The recorded statement is designed to obtain statements that can be used against you later — inconsistencies, admissions, and characterizations of your injuries that will be produced at mediation or trial. If an adjuster contacts you, say: “I am not prepared to give a statement at this time.” Then contact an attorney. Your own insurance company may require a statement under your policy terms, but even that statement should be given with care and, ideally, with legal guidance.
The insurance company already offered me a settlement — should I take it?
Almost certainly not, and absolutely not without having it reviewed by a lawyer. The purpose of a fast settlement offer is to close the claim before the full extent of the injuries is known. In a critical-injury case, the full medical picture may not develop for weeks or months — the surgeries, the rehabilitation, the complications, the permanent functional limitations. The permanent disability may not be apparent until the victim attempts to return to work and cannot. A settlement signed today extinguishes every future claim — the surgery in two years, the chronic pain in five, the lost earning capacity over a lifetime. The fast check is not generosity. It is strategy.
How much is my I-20 crash case worth?
We cannot answer that question with a specific number until we have the crash report, the medical records, and the identity of the defendants. The honest range, based on the confirmed facts, runs from approximately $250,000 (if this is a passenger-car crash with standard policy limits and moderate comparative-fault exposure) to $5,000,000 or more (if a commercial carrier is involved with clear liability, catastrophic injuries, and gross-negligence aggravators). The factors that drive value are: the severity and permanence of the injuries, the available insurance coverage, the strength of the liability evidence, whether a commercial carrier is involved, and whether the defendant’s conduct rises to gross negligence. An honest assessment requires the facts that the crash report and the medical records will provide.
What if the at-fault driver does not have enough insurance to cover my injuries?
This is one of the most common and most devastating problems in serious-injury cases. Texas’s minimum liability coverage requirements for passenger vehicles are modest, and a single night in a trauma ICU can exceed them. If the at-fault driver’s insurance is insufficient, several recovery avenues may exist: underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage on your own policy, medical payments coverage, health insurance (subject to lien reimbursement), and — if a commercial carrier is involved — the carrier’s substantially higher federal insurance requirements. Identifying every available source of coverage is part of the investigation, and it can double or triple the effective recovery in a case where the at-fault driver’s policy is inadequate.
I cannot afford a lawyer — how do I pay for one?
You do not pay anything up front. We handle personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis: 33.33 percent of the recovery if the case settles before trial, 40 percent if it goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. There is no hourly charge, no retainer, and no bill for the first conversation. If we take the case and do not recover anything, you owe us nothing for our time. The contingency fee structure exists so that people who have been critically injured — people who may be unable to work, who are facing medical bills they cannot pay — can still have access to the same quality of legal representation as the insurance companies sitting on the other side of the table.
Can I still pursue a claim if my loved one did not survive the crash?
Yes. If the victim does not survive, the personal injury claim transforms into a survival claim (brought by the estate, capturing damages from injury to death) and a wrongful death claim (brought by the surviving statutory beneficiaries — spouse, children, and parents — capturing the family’s losses). The two-year statute of limitations applies, running from the date of death. A personal representative must be appointed by the court to bring the survival claim on behalf of the estate. The evidence — the crash report, the EDR data, the scene evidence, the medical records — is the same evidence regardless of whether the victim survived, which is why preservation matters from the first day.
How long does a catastrophic-injury case take?
A case involving critical injuries is not resolved in weeks. The medical picture must develop before the case can be valued — and for catastrophic injuries, that development takes months. The surgeries, the rehabilitation, the complications, the functional assessments, the life-care plan — all of it must be complete or substantially complete before a settlement demand that reflects the true cost of the injuries can be presented. Discovery — the production of documents, the depositions of witnesses and experts — adds additional months. Most serious-injury cases resolve within 12 to 24 months. Some go to trial, which extends the timeline further. The timeline is driven by the medicine and the evidence, not by the lawyer’s schedule.
What should I do right now — today — if my family member was critically injured in this crash?
Three things. First, focus on the medical care — be present, ask questions, take notes, and make sure the treating team has the full history. Second, do not sign anything from any insurance company, do not give a recorded statement to anyone, and do not discuss fault with the other party or their insurer. Third, call a lawyer — today, not next week — so the preservation letters that freeze the evidence can go out while the evidence still exists. The EDR data, the surveillance footage, the cell phone records, and the commercial carrier’s federal records are all on a clock, and that clock does not pause while the family is in the ICU. The day you call is the day the evidence starts being protected.
The Bottom Line
Two people were critically injured on I-20 near Exit 278 in Abilene. The facts are still emerging. What we know for certain is this: the evidence that will tell us what happened is disappearing on a schedule measured in hours and days, the insurance company is already working to limit its exposure, and the legal deadline — while it sounds distant — is firm and unforgiving.
If your family is living through this, you do not have to figure it out alone. The consultation is free. The call is answered 24 hours a day. We do not get paid unless we win your case. And if we are not the right firm for you, we will tell you — and we will point you toward someone who is.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. Legal Emergency Lawyers.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case depends on its own facts. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.