This week in Tampa, Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis enacted a law permitting the Pasco County School Board to award $1 million to a man who was struck by a school bus almost twenty years ago.
It’s the call that changed Robin Button’s life forever.
“Robin, Marcus has been in a terrible accident,” she remembered hearing her brother say on that disastrous day back in 2006. “It doesn’t look — it doesn’t look good.”
A friend picked up Robin’s son, Marcus, on the morning of Sept. 22, 2006, when deputies said a school bus pulled out in front of them.
Marcus’ friend slammed on the brakes, but her car hit the school bus and got pinned underneath.
Deputies said she injured her knee, but Marcus suffered facial and skull fractures, brain damage and vision loss.
“They gave me all his clothes in a plastic bag,” his mother recounted. “When they handed it to me, it seemed like they were implying he might not survive.”
Robin said, when Marcus woke up, he wasn’t himself.
From speaking in different accents to hallucinating, Robin said, Marcus’ life will never be the same and neither will hers.
After her husband died, Robin quit her job and started caring for Marcus full-time.
“We’ve been struggling a long time,” she cried. “I want to be able to go grocery shopping instead of trying to live off of $50 a piece each month in groceries.”
“That’s all we get from food stamps, $50 a piece,” Robin continued.
In 2007, Marcus’ parents sued the Pasco County School Board.
They settled at $1.2 million, but a Forida statute capped that at $200,000 for nearly two decades.
Until this week when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 8, finally letting the school board give Marcus the remaining $1 million and his mother $200,000.
You can read that bill in full below.
It also said, “It is the intent of the Legislature that all government liens, including Medicaid liens, resulting from the treatment and care of Marcus Button for the occurrences described in this act are waived and must be paid by the state.”
News Channel 8 reporter Nicole Rogers asked Robin, “Does this bring you any closure back to 2006?”
“No, it doesn’t bring me back any closure,” she said. “I still have to live through it for the rest of my life, and he still has to live through it for the rest of his life.”
