DATE: Saturday, September 6, 1997           TAG: 9709060364

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   64 lines

JURY TAKES 20 MINUTES TO CLEAR FIRE TRUCK DRIVER EYEWITNESSES DIFFER ON WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR FATAL 1996 COLLISION IN CHESAPEAKE.

A Chesapeake fire truck driver was not responsible for a fatal accident last year on Great Bridge Boulevard, a jury has ruled.

The Circuit Court jury deliberated only 20 minutes Thursday in finding the fire truck driver, S. Heather Powell, not liable for the accident on June 18, 1996.

The driver was responding to an emergency medical call when the fire truck collided with a pickup truck on the two-lane road. The pickup truck driver, Charles Eugene Rogers, 34, of East Ocean View in Norfolk, died instantly.

Eyewitnesses differed on who was to blame.

At trial, three witnesses testified that the fire truck crossed the road's center line. But three other witnesses said the pickup truck crossed the center line.

After the verdict, one juror approached Powell in the courthouse parking lot, shook her hand and said all the jurors were proud of how she had handled her vehicle, said Powell's attorney, Alan B. Rashkind.

``The feeling is unbelievable, the weight that's been lifted off my shoulders,'' Powell said Friday.

The city of Chesapeake was not a defendant in the case, but probably would have paid damages if the jury had found Powell liable. ``Obviously we were very pleased with the verdict,'' City Attorney Ronald S. Hallman said Friday.

The attorney for Rogers' family, John E. Zydron, said he will not appeal the verdict. ``It was a tough case,'' Zydron said. ``We thought our three eyewitnesses were pretty strong, but obviously the jury didn't see it that way.''

Rogers' family sued the fire truck driver for $5 million in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages. The lawsuit was filed in Virginia Beach because that is where the fire truck driver lives.

Since the crash, Powell said, she has relived the collision repeatedly. It was painful, she said, listening to people accuse her of wrongdoing for the past year, in the court action, ``knowing deep down inside that I didn't do it.''

Powell was not suspended, and there was no internal department investigation. Indeed, Fire Chief Michael Bolac complimented Powell on her driving immediately after the collision.

``It's ironic that the jury came to the exact same conclusion,'' said Rashkind, Powell's attorney.

For a while, Powell said, it was difficult getting back in the driver's seat of the fire truck, haunted by memories.

``It's kind of like a bad videotape that you play over and over and over again in your mind, that you can't shut off,'' Powell said. ``This is finally some closure for us, that it's finally over.''

After the collision, police said the pickup truck was to blame. They said Rogers, the pickup driver, was trying to pass a car and had pulled out in front of the oncoming fire truck. No one was seriously hurt on the fire truck.

At trial, Zydron did not dispute that the fire truck had its lights and siren on.

He did argue, however, that Powell lost control of the fire truck after rounding a blind curve and hitting a dip in the road.

To win the case, Zydron had to prove not just ordinary negligence but gross negligence, or reckless disregard for the safety of others - the standard in most cases against governments and their employees. KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITY TRIAL CHESAPEAKE

FIRE DEPARTMENT

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