Forty years ago this week, a 26-year-old law school graduate named Greg Abbott was out jogging on the streets of River Oaks when a tree snapped and fell, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Based on Abbott’s life expectancy, the payments totaled to about $11 million when adjusted for inflation, although the full number won’t be known until Abbott’s death.

Sixteen years after he won millions, Abbott, now a candidate for attorney general, campaigned to usher in tort reforms that would further limit plaintiffs’ abilities to pursue accident damages.

Source: Chron - How Gov. Greg Abbott won millions and helped stop Texans from doing the same

And nothing bad ever happened to him either

Buy twelve hundred Cuban cigars and next thing you know your wife’s picking pieces of your brain off her lap.