A Utah man who claims he was seriously injured after actress Gwyneth Paltrow ran into him took the witness stand Monday after attorneys revealed new evidence had surfaced.
Paltrow, 50, is being sued for $300,000 by retired optometrist Terry Sanderson, who alleges the actress drove him in the back of the face at Deer Valley Resort in Utah in 2016.
Sanderson took the witness stand Monday morning and recalled the ski collision and the “bloody clotting scream” he heard when Paltrow allegedly drove into him.
“There was nothing in front of me,” he said in the stands. “I just remember everything was great, and then I heard something I’ve never heard in a ski resort.”
Terry Sanderson is photographed giving testimony. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)
Terry Sanderson took a stand on Monday. (Associated Press)
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Sanderson said, “It was like someone got out of control and hit a tree and died, and that’s what I had until I got hit.”
“Is that what goes through your head when you hear that scream?” said his lawyer.
“You really are seriously out of control,” Sanderson replied.
The retired optometrist said he was hit in the back and felt the two fists with ski poles between his shoulder blades.
“All I saw was a lot of snow and I didn’t see the sky,” he said. “I flew with that in mind and had no control.”
Sanderson also stated on the stand that he “doesn’t believe in celebrity worship,” but he emailed his children on the same day of the accident with the subject line “I’m famous.”
Terry Sanderson claimed he heard a “blood-clotting scream” before Gwyneth Paltrow hit him on the ski slope at Deer Valley Resort. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)
Terry Sanderson said he was rammed from behind and “absolutely flown”. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)
Paltrow’s attorney Stephen Owens asked questions about Sanderson’s memory of the incident.
“Are you agreeing that you don’t have a perfect memory of what you told others in the one, two, three minutes after the collision?” he asked.
Sanderson replied, “The answer would be, no, it’s not perfect.”
“You don’t even remember ski patrols coming by?” said Owens
“No, I don’t remember that,” Sanderson said.
The retired optometrist got emotional while discussing their relationship at the time of the collision. Sanderson claimed he told his ex-girlfriend Karlene Davidson to leave him.
Davidson told the jury last week that Sanderson “started to push [her] away” after the accident. “He had no more joy in his life,” she recalled. “I didn’t know what he was dealing with, I thought it was relationship status things, and so I blame a lot of that … and looking back now, I think a lot happened.”
Davidson was dating Sanderson at the time of the collision and said their relationship fell apart shortly after the incident. She described Terry as “fun-loving, cheerful and very ambitious” with “lots of energy”. Davidson “had a lot of trouble keeping up with him.”
Gwyneth Paltrow arrived on day five of the civil trial. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)
Sanderson’s testimony followed the introduction of new evidence into Monday morning’s trial. The new evidence comes from a viewer who followed the trial and examined the link in an email Terry Sanderson sent to his daughters. The viewer sent a copy of the message to attorneys who were unable to recover the link.
Craig Ramon, the only eyewitness to the crash, was briefly called back to the booth Monday morning to discuss the Meetup.com release.
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Paltrow’s attorney plans to call the actress’ husband, Brad Falchuk, and their children – Apple, 18, and Moses, 16 – to testify in her defense.
The ‘Shakespeare in Love’ actress spent around two hours at the booth on Friday while answering questions from Sanderson’s attorney and her own. She reported what happened – and explained several times that the retired optometrist drove into her from behind.
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Gwyneth Paltrow testified about the ski collision and claimed Terry Sanderson drove into her. (Getty Images)
Paltrow said she initially thought she might have been sexually assaulted when the collision happened.
“So that was a quick thought that went through my mind as I tried to reconcile what happened,” Paltrow said. “Two skis came between my skis and pushed my legs apart, and then a body pushed against me.”
“My brain was trying to understand what was happening,” she added. “I thought, ‘Is this a prank? Is someone doing something perverted?’ My mind was going very, very fast and my mind was trying to figure out what happened.”
Paltrow noted that it felt like they were “spooning” as the two fell to the ground. She also said that she doesn’t claim to have been sexually assaulted, but that it was just “what went through [her] note when it happened.”
Gwyneth Paltrow has attended the trial since the first day of court. (Getty Images)
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Terry Sanderson’s daughter, Shae Herath, took the witness stand Friday. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer/Pool)
Terry Sanderson’s daughter, Polly Grasham, spoke about changes she’s noticed in her father’s behavior. (AP Photo/Jeff Swinger/Pool)
The jury heard from two of Sanderson’s three daughters last week. Polly Grasham and Shae Herath both testified about changes they have observed in their father’s personality since the skiing accident.
Grasham spoke about the moment she realized something was “terribly wrong” with her father, about a year or a year and a half after the accident.
“Its processing speeds,” she said, were slower and “the amount of effort it required, definitely when we were in person…I felt like, wow.”
“I almost expected drool to come out of his mouth because he wasn’t engaged to anyone and had gone to a secluded corner,” added Grasham.
That was the moment she knew something was “terribly wrong,” she said.
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Terry Sanderson is suing Gwyneth Paltrow for $300,000, alleging the actress drove into him and caused permanent brain damage in a 2016 skiing accident. (Rick Bowmer / File)
Paltrow and Sanderson remain in a legal battle following the 2016 skiing collision that left Sanderson seriously injured, according to the 2019 lawsuit. The jury last week heard testimony from doctors who discussed Sanderson’s health before and after the collision.
Sanderson accused the Goop founder of skiing after the accident, which the lawsuit said left him with “permanent traumatic brain injury, four broken ribs, pain, suffering, loss of zest for life,” as well as emotional distress and disfigurement.
Sanderson originally sued the actress, Deer Valley Resort and an instructor for $3.1 million, claiming he was a hit-and-run victim. A judge dismissed the lawsuit, and Deer Valley Resort and the instructor were removed from the lawsuit.
Paltrow has filed a countersuit, alleging that Sanderson previously admitted he had no clear memory of the accident.
The actress is seeking judgment for attorneys’ fees plus $1.
A general view of the Deer Valley Resort ski slopes. (Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital’s Tracy Wright contributed to this report.