A Jackson County jury awarded $6.4 million to a Missouri firefighter and his wife after finding an ambulance company's gurney directly caused a series of devastating injuries including a brain condition that took three weeks to surface and became the central battleground of the trial.
The verdict in Montgomery v. Medevac Medical Response, Inc. was returned January 14, 2026, in Jackson County Circuit Court at Independence, before Judge Kenneth Garrett III. The defendant never offered a single penny to settle.
What Happened on January 11, 2017
Buddy Montgomery was a firefighter responding to a call for an unresponsive person in an Independence apartment parking lot. Defendant AMR, operating as Medevac Medical Response, Inc., responded to the same call with ambulance services and provided the gurney used to transport the patient.
As Montgomery and a fellow firefighter lifted the patient onto the gurney, it shifted. Montgomery pulled up on the patient to prevent him from falling to the ground. That split-second reaction caused the injuries that would alter the course of his life.
Montgomery suffered a SLAP tear to his right shoulder and a herniated disc at C6-C7, both of which required multiple surgeries. Three weeks after the incident, he developed hydrocephalus a serious neurological condition caused by a blockage from a congenital colloid cyst in his brain.
The Fight Over Causation
The hydrocephalus diagnosis became the defining issue in the case. The defense argued the timing was coincidental that a pre-existing congenital cyst, not the gurney incident, triggered the condition. The plaintiff's team countered that the physical trauma from the incident caused the blockage to manifest.
Lead attorney Brett Burmeister of Burmeister Gilmore in Blue Springs credited the treating neurosurgeon with turning the tide on that issue.
"Persuading jurors of the causal connection between the incident and our client's hydrocephalus brain injury, which did not manifest until 20 days later, presented the greatest challenge," Burmeister said. "The treating neurosurgeon really went to bat for our client, and I think that made a huge difference with the jury."
The defendant also argued that Montgomery and his fellow firefighter bore responsibility for ensuring the gurney was secure before lifting the patient a position the jury ultimately rejected, though not entirely.
The Verdict Breakdown
The gross jury award was $8 million: $6 million to Buddy Montgomery and $2 million to his wife, Stacy Montgomery, for loss of consortium.
The jury allocated 80 percent of fault to Medevac Medical Response and 20 percent to the plaintiff, reducing the net verdict to $6.4 million under Missouri's comparative fault rules.
Special damages included:
- $478,000 in past medical expenses
- $2.4 million in lost wages and lost household services
- $1.7 million in future supervision and caregiving expenses
The plaintiffs had demanded $5.5 million at mediation. The defendant made no offer. The jury returned a verdict that exceeded that demand by nearly $1 million on a net basis.
A Case Built on Expert Testimony
Both sides assembled substantial expert panels. The plaintiff's team called eight experts spanning EMS standards, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, economics, vocational rehabilitation, psychiatry, and mental health therapy.
The defense countered with four experts, including two neurologists who supported the coincidence theory on the hydrocephalus, and an EMS expert disputing the plaintiff's account of the gurney's role.
The depth of expert testimony on both sides reflects how hard Medevac fought this case and how thoroughly the jury sided with the plaintiff on the core liability and causation questions.
The plaintiff's legal team included Brett Burmeister and Kristi Burmeister of Burmeister Gilmore in Blue Springs, and Eric Playter of Playter Trial Lawyers in Rayton. The defense was represented by Stephen Fields and Emily Lavine of Brinker & Doyen in St. Louis, and Daniel Huff and Michelle Salandy of Huff Powell Bailey in Atlanta.
What This Verdict Signals for EMS and Commercial Liability Cases
Cases involving emergency medical service providers present a particular challenge for plaintiff attorneys. Defendants in this space often argue that on-scene personnel share responsibility for equipment failures, and that the chaotic nature of emergency response makes causation harder to establish.
This verdict demonstrates that juries are willing to hold commercial EMS operators accountable when their equipment contributes to a responder's injury even when the defense raises a plausible alternative explanation for the most serious diagnosis.
For Missouri plaintiff attorneys handling cases involving EMS companies, ambulance operators, or commercial service providers, this outcome is a useful data point on what a well-built expert case can achieve at trial.
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