Salvatore Gaudio has had two toes amputated in separate operations since the accident, and continues to suffer “phantom limb pain,” a nerve problem which causes him to feel continuing pain in the amputated toes, according to his attorney, Peter J. Bartinik of Groton.

Gaudio also will receive $390,000 in cash and will not be required to repay $138,000 in worker’s compensation he received following the accident, Bartinik said.

Bartinik said he will send transcripts of the case to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission in an effort to force changes in the design of Caterpiller’s popular D8K bulldozer which would make the machine safer. Kenneth Mulvey, the New Haven attorney who represented Caterpiller, said Wednesday the company disputes the claim that the bulldozer is unsafe.

“Cases are settled and resolved for many, many reasons, and some of them don’t always appear in the complaint. There are many reasons this complaint was settled, and I don’t think it would do any good to go into them at length, but Caterpiller contends its product is safe,” Mulvey said. “It’s a very safe product,” Mulvey said, “It’s been built like that for many years and there are hundreds of thousands of them in use around the world.”

The accident occurred April 6, 1981, when Gaudio was working for the Yonkers Construction Co. on the construction of Route 8 in Waterbury. Gaudio, a heavy equipment mechanic, and a “greaser” – someone who changes oil in the machines – were making their morning checks of the machines, Bartinik said. While trying to put transmission fluid into one of the bulldozers, a supply hose got tangled on the blade and Gaudio went to untangle it. Although the blade was on the ground Gaudio’s foot slipped under it at a low spot in the dirt; the greaser, trying to reach the transmission fill tube under the bulldozer’s seat, accidently bumped into the control lever for the blade, and it dug into the ground crushing Gaudio’s foot, Bartinik said.

The suit claimed the control lever should have had a lock preventing it from being accidentally engaged, and that the transmission fill tube was in a position that could cause a mechanic to bump into the control lever by accident.

Since then, Caterpiller has changed the location of the fill tube to outside the cab of the bulldozer which buttressed Gaudio’s claim, Bartinik said.

Bartinik said the jury had been selected in the case and the trial was ready to begin when the settlement was reached. “Up to that time there had been no offers,” Bartinik said.