FORMER BUS DRIVER IN A STATE OF LIMBO BECAUSE OF INJURY ON JOB

CHAFFEE -- In the spring of 1991, Greyhound bus driver Max Moore fell into an uncovered expansion joint at the company garage in Chicago, injuring his left hand seriously enough to require surgery.

The left wrist and a bad back have caused him to miss more work since then. But now a company doctor and a Department of Transportation physician say he is physically capable of driving once again, even though the 52-year-old twice has failed driving tests given by Greyhound.

Today he exists in a kind of limbo: unwilling to drive because he doesn't believe he can operate a bus safely anymore, defacto unemployed because the company has not offered him other work, and unable to collect unemployment benefits because Greyhound contends he is refusing to work.

The situation angers his wife Linda. "People get on those buses and think they're going to be safe," she says. "A person should not be punished because they know they can't take those people safely."

Greyhound's Moe Yeganeh was not Moore's senior supervisor at the time but is in that position now in St. Louis. He and a number of other supervisors were given the opportunity to respond but did not.

Moore has not worked for Greyhound since last May, which is when he, his wife and two teenage children moved to Chaffee from St. Louis. Greyhound, which contested his application for unemployment, says he is on leave without pay, according to the Moores.

Moore wears an immobilization brace on his left arm at all times and claims he would be endangering his passengers if he returned to driving.

"It's hard to drive with the brace. It got where I didn't feel I could properly control that bus," he said.

The company physician who declared him 15 percent permanently partially disabled in 1991 more recently told him to take the arm brace off and go back to work.

"I attempted to drive the bus without the brace," Moore says. "Three hours into it the pain level was so high I couldn't continue...The driver instructor drove back to St. Louis."

Given the opportunity to drive with the brace, he failed the company driving test again.

Thereafter, "I made it known to the driver supervisor that I didn't think I would ever be able to return to driving a bus," Moore said.

Moore and his wife used to drive an over-the-road truck together until she hurt her knees falling off the back of a trailer. She now walks with a cane and receives a government disability check.

In 1990, Moore took a job as a replacement driver during a strike against Greyhound so he wouldn't have to be away from home so much. The injury occurred in April 1991, and his work for the company since has constituted "light duty."

He didn't return to driving a bus until December of that year. Shortly afterward, he reinjured the left wrist lifting baggage, and tests found deterioration of the bone, he says. He did not return to driving until July 1992.

Two months later, Moore fell in some water on an incline and this time injured his back. He was off the job again until May of this year. In the meantime, he put in for a switch to a customer service job but never got beyond a second interview.

In a letter dated December 1992, Moore's neurologist stated he has a cumulative 40 percent permanent partial disability of the left wrist, a 20 percent permanent partial disability of the left shoulder, and 20 percent permanent partial disability of the spine.

"This man should be restricted from any type of occupation in which he has to repetitively grasp or bend with the left wrist or shoulder," Cohen stated.

When scheduled for refresher training as a driver last May, Moore says, he agonized over whether to give up his $30,000 a year job by telling Greyhound he could not and would not return to driving because of his physical impairment.

When he did so, his senior supervisor "asked if I was resigning," Moore said. "I said, No."

On June 24, 1993, his two-hand steering and reaction to conditions were judged unsatisfactory by a driver instructor evaluating his performance in a refresher training. He was not wearing the arm brace. The next day, a different instructor added "reaction to conditions" to the list of unsatisfactories.

The same two instructors evaluated Moore's driving with the brace a week later and he did better, but both pointed out that they were required to fail him because the brace prevented him from using the "push-pull" steering technique required of Greyhound drivers.

Moore meanwhile put in for unemployment, "just to be on the safe side," Linda says. Greyhound contested, claiming he had refused to work. His workmers' compensation claim has not yet been settled.

Denied unemployment benefits, Moore took his case to the state Labor and Industrial Relations Commission and lost again in August.

In response to an inquiry from state Sen. Peter Kinder, the commission's counsel, Victorine R. Mahon, stated that Moore never provided it with a doctor's statement pertaining to the wrist and failed to file a timely appeal of the decision.

"...He is without recourse," Mahon wrote.

Linda Moore says her husband was caught off guard by the commission's request for a doctor's statement, thinking they meant a statement from Greyhound's doctors.

The Moores say they have cashed in their life insurance policy, and used an annuity and savings to get by since last May. They live on her disability check and his Air Force pension. He has no medical benefits and is not getting physical therapy.

Moore recently started working part-time for an electrical contractor but says, "You don't just make career changes at 52."

"...How do you put it back together?" he asks. "You don't."

Says Linda, "My husband was trying to do the right thing. The right and moral thing.

"...When you do the right thing it kicks you square in the rear."