MILAN, Illinois — Tammy Fuller is glad the drunk driver who hit her will spend a decade in prison, but says she will be paying a price for the rest of her life.
"The pain is constant still," she said from the Milan trailer she shares with four family members, who are now helping to support her.
"I've always taken care of my family. I've never had to depend on my family for anything. I feel defeated,"she said.
Both ankles were shattered. She endured months of metal clamps that had to be drilled into the bone in her legs to try and piece her back together. She spent months in a hospital and nursing home.
Fuller was a single mom employed at a quality control for a local meat company, but can't work right now. She has spent most of the last year in bed or in her wheelchair.
She sleeps on a couch in the one bedroom trailer she shares with three adults and her grandson.
"I'm dependent on them, and that kills me," she said.
This was the fifth DUI for Dan Sylvester. He was sentenced to a dozen years in prison but was not ordered to pay any restitution. Fuller says she is glad prosecutors in Rock Island County finally took him off the street, but says he is better off right now, than she is.
"He's got room and board, he's got three meals a day, he's got heat, a TV. I'm still struggling. Every dollar counts here," she said.
Sylvester had a $25,000 liability insurance policy, but Unity Point, she says, has already put a lien on the settlement. Nearly all of the money will go to the hospital, even though, she says they could be billing her insurance company.
"He had minimal liability insurance. The hospital is refusing to take my insurance, and put the lien against me. They won't take my health insurance. They won't bill my Blue Cross/Blue Shield," she said.
Her work paid for six months of COBRA for her, and she is grateful. But, there's only so much charity to go around. Her health insurance ends November 1st.
Her sons are building Fuller a ramp outside the door of the trailer. She says she never envisioned her life this way. Changed, in a an instant, by a man whose blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit.
"Luckily I'm alive, but I'm not living. I'm just existing now," she said.