Roller-coaster victims’ injuries may be ‘lifelong,’ attorneys say
A lawyer representing three victims of the Daytona Beach roller coaster that derailed last week said his clients suffered potentially lifelong injuries.
“Their injuries are severe,” attorney Matt Morgan said during a news conference Monday. “Their injuries are significant. Their injuries are going to likely last a lifetime — all due to what we believe was a foreseeable failure.”
Morgan also said Bill Avery and Brian Avery, experts on the safety of amusement rides, are investigating Thursday’s derailment of the Sand Blaster roller coaster, which left nine people hospitalized.
Three victims, who were visiting from Kentucky, hired the Orlando-based law firm Morgan and Morgan to represent them. A lawsuit has not been filed yet.
His clients are two women and a man, two of whom suffered concussions.
One of the women remains hospitalized after undergoing surgery. She suffered more than 10 broken bones during the incident, Morgan said.
The other woman is 34-year-old Amanda Bostic, who fell 34 feet from the roller coaster, bounced “like a ping pong ball” between the rails and woke up with the coaster dangling over her head, according to Morgan. Bostic has been discharged from the hospital.
It took 45 minutes for rescuers to pull the people out of the dangling car, Morgan said.
“This is an experience that will live with them forever. It’ll haunt them forever, and you just don’t recover from these things,” he said.
Bill Avery said he will trace all available historical data, including inspections and maintenance records, as well as the manufacturer’s manual and stop orders for the roller coaster.
“If there’s a history that was ignored, that’s really going to change the way this case is looked at,” he said.
The roller coaster’s state inspection records showed that last month, an inspector found excessive corrosion, a damaged seat and a crack in the track. But the problems were fixed by the time of a follow-up inspection on Thursday, hours before the roller coaster derailed.
Workers disconnected three disabled roller-coaster cars and removed them from the track on Saturday, the Daytona Beach NewsJournal reported.
“At this time, we respectfully request all responsible entities preserve any and all relevant evidence pertinent to our investigation,” Morgan wrote in a statement on Sunday. “This would include, but not be limited to, the dismantling or destruction of the roller coaster and associated roller coaster cars in question.”
The roller coaster was inspected hours before it derailed, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which is also investigating the malfunction.
Morgan said he anticipates a lawsuit, if the parties involved don’t tender all available insurance limits to the victims.
Under Florida law, amusementride operators are required to have a $1 million liability insurance policy for amusement rides, but Morgan said that amount won’t cover all the injuries associated with his clients’ “likely lifelong injuries.”
“If I was this coaster’s insurance company, I would have already
sent a million-dollar check, without question, just based on the information they have today,” Morgan said. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.