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A 60-year-old Naples woman was awarded a $2.059 million verdict Monday after a Collier Circuit jury agreed her former friend’s negligence caused a 2003 boat crash that broke her back.

The three-man, three-woman jury deliberated about five hours before deciding 78-year-old Richard Mohring of Bonita Springs should pay Kate Gammack-Clark $2,059,426.97 for injuries she suffered as a passenger on a 20-foot pontoon boat he was piloting along the Capri Pass area Sept. 22, 2003, as they headed north to a Naples restaurant to celebrate his 74th birthday.

Jurors found that Mohring, a retired Long Island developer, was 95 percent negligent, while Gammack-Clark was 5 percent responsible. The two were friends and neighbors at Hideaway Beach on Marco Island.

The crash occurred about 1 p.m. as Gammack-Clark, 56, took a photo of Mohring, then handed the camera to him after he asked to take one of her. He snapped a shot, testimony showed, but then wasn’t certain he’d operated the camera properly and handed it back to her to check that he’d taken a photo. As she stepped toward him to take her camera, the boat smashed into mangroves near Marker 3A and she was thrown six feet to the front of the boat, severely injuring her back.

She underwent three operations, had to wear a rigid, plastic clamshell body brace twice for four months each, and now her spine is held together with rods, pins and cement. She testified she suffers constant pain from her waist down. Testimony during the six-day trial showed she takes 11 medications daily, including two morphine-derivative pain killers. Medical expenses, so far, have totaled $677,426.97.

As the verdict was announced, Gammack-Clark clasped her 21-year-old daughter, Christine’s, hand. Afterward, Gammack-Clark, an entrepreneur and mother of five, said she planned to go home to sleep after the stress of the trial.

“I’m just glad it’s over,” Gammack-Clark said outside the small, cramped courtroom that barely fit the jury, two alternates, and attorneys. “It’s been a very long, hard road. The other side kept delaying, delaying, and delaying. I thought we’d never get to the end.”

“The pain is always there,” she said of her injury. “It never goes away.”

Her daughter said it was hard watching her mother, once very active, suffer such pain. “The toughest part is being a daughter and watching your mom go through this,” Christine Gammack-Clark said. “It’s heart-wrenching.”

She blamed Mohring, she said, because he initially admitted he was at fault, then refused to settle.

Gammack-Clark’s attorneys, Trey Lytal and his father, Lake Lytal Jr., of West Palm Beach, offered to settle the lawsuit, filed in May 2005, for $1.3 million, the limit for Mohring’s Allstate Insurance policy. “We offered to settle for that amount a long, long time ago and they refused to pay us,” Lake Lytal said.

Mohring’s attorney, Ron Arend of Fort Myers, ordered transcripts of the trial for a possible appeal and declined comment after the verdict.

The trial began with jury selection last Monday. The plaintiffs presented 15 witnesses, including a surgeon, doctors, medical and economics experts, while the defense presented one witness: Mohring’s videotaped deposition. Closing arguments were Monday morning.

Testimony showed Mohring rented the pontoon boat, named Sarah, from Marco River Marina and its maximum speed was 25 mph, although 10 to 15 mph was recommended. Mohring told marina employees he believed he was driving about 15 mph. Although Gammack-Clark told hospital employees immediately afterward she was uncertain what they’d hit — a sandbar or mangroves — two marina employees testified the boat was covered in branches when it returned.

Their testimony also showed Mohring immediately called the marina to say he’d been distracted and crashed into mangroves. At his deposition, however, he testified he didn’t know what he’d hit and challenged the plaintiffs’ attorneys to prove it was mangroves.

Gammack-Clark planned to go into real estate with her son in Southwest Florida, but testified the crash halted those plans.

Jurors heard she met Mohring in her neighborhood, they became friends, and he asked her to marry him “almost daily” and she refused. The lawsuit ended the friendship. Jurors saw the last snapshots of the happy friends before the crash, with Mohring smiling at the helm. They also heard the couple had champagne to celebrate his birthday.

The lawsuit alleged Mohring ran the boat aground into a mangrove island, drove it at inappropriate speeds, and failed to operate it in a reasonably prudent fashion considering the surroundings.

During closing arguments, Trey Lytal asked jurors to award Gammack-Clark $6 million for her past, present and future medical care, loss of earnings, pain and suffering and other damages. “What she’s going to live with is never going to end,” he said.

Arend placed some of the blame on Gammack-Clark for her injuries, saying she’d been drinking that day and continues to drink wine. Arend contended Mohring wasn’t drinking, noting that in his deposition, he testified he was taking so many medications wine would make him sick. Arend reminded jurors that marina employees testified he wasn’t intoxicated.

“She wants to put all the blame on Richard,” Arend argued. “She wants to accept no blame for what happened.”

Arend tried to minimize her injuries, noting she had osteopenia — a lessening of bone density — which made her spine more susceptible. He urged jurors to pore over medical records, contending all her doctor visits weren’t crash-related, and urged them to award her nothing for lost earnings because she hadn’t worked in this country. He asked jurors to cap their award at $1 million.