Parasailing Accident Similar to Past Case Tried by Firm
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Staff Writer August 21, 2007 9:45 AMThis past Saturday, two teenage sisters went parasailing near Pompano Beach. According to the Miami Herald, while they were in the air, the winds turned gusty and the rope that tethered them to the boat snapped. They hurdled past the shoreline, hit a thatched roof shelter and then slammed into the second floor of the Beachcomber Resort. Jeannete Lewis, attorney and partner of The Haggard Law Firm tried a similar case involving a parasailing accident that took place in the Bahamas.
Tosha Walker's mother recovered a $1.8 million verdict in a lawsuit she filed in Miami for her daughter's death in a parasailing accident in the Bahamas. It was her daughter's first parasail ride. Tosha was riding in tandem with a friend. She was told she had to ride tandem with her friend because she did not weigh much and because of the windy conditions. In actuality, the parasail company wanted to make sure that both riders got their parasail ride (and their money's worth) before the ominous storm off in the distance moved in.
Photographs taken by friends on the boat as the happy tandem riders were tethered showed some clouds off in the distance, clouds that, as photographs were taken during the short ride, showed the darkening clouds looming ever closer to the boat. With the nearing of the storm, came winds and gusts, - gusts which caused the poorly maintained rope to snap and the parasail at that moment became a slave of the wind. The tandem riders were blown out to sea as they descended to the waters. Dragged underwater for several hundred feet, Tosha drowned.
Factors in the case were that Tosha and her companion were riding in a 32 foot parasail. The parasail was too large for the windy conditions. Windy conditions dictate either that a smaller parasail be used or that no parasailing activities take place at all. Moreover, saltwater is very harmful to the rope fibers and requires that ropes be checked consistently and frequently. The kind of rope used is important as well. Certain rope is more vulnerable to the effects of salt water than others.
Crashing into buildings is nothing new in the parasailing industry. Inside Edition did a piece after Tosha Walker died. Her mother was featured in the piece pleading for standards to be drafted and enforced so that this would not happen to any other mother, father, sister or brother. The piece had news footage of several parasailing incidents in which the riders were blown into buildings. To date, the industry remains largely unregulated by the US Coast Guard.
The Haggard Law Firm serves it clients both domestically and internationally and is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards of professional representation and civility in the practice of law.
For more information on this subject matter please refer to the section on Wrongful Death.