Do you need a boating accident lawyer or a sports injury lawyer? Serious injuries frequently happen as the result of recreational and sporting activities. These can include: boating accidents; collisions involving jet skis or water skiers; off-road vehicles; failure to provide adequate lifeguard services at a community or public pool; and a whole host of other types of recreational situations. Many of these cases occur as the result of inadequate training, defective products,improper safeguards and/or negligence of others.
Injuries resulting from recreational and sports activities can be extremely serious and oftentimes fatal. While California law specifies that people who participate in these activities sometimes “assume the risk” that they may be injured, this does not always apply. People who are injured while engaging in recreational and sports activities need to have an experienced boating accident lawyer or a sports injury lawyer assist them in making sure that their rights to bring a claim for lawful compensation are protected.
Recreational Safety Case Study ( click for details )( click to close )
While the young man was in the process of swimming laps on this Sunday afternoon, he suddenly stopped swimming; after splashing on the surface of the water for a few seconds he stopped moving and slowly sunk to the bottom of the pool which, at that location, was only about four (4) feet deep. Although there were two American Red Cross certified lifeguards present and on duty at the time, he lay motionless on the floor of the pool for approximately two and a half (2 ½) minutes. Eventually another guest at poolside saw him laying on the bottom of the swimming lane and notified the lifeguards who, up until this time, were focused only on the “kiddie” half of the pool and not watching the few people who were swimming in the lap area. By the time he was brought to the surface of the water and the two lifeguards were able to get him out of the pool and onto the deck, nearly five (5) minutes had passed without any breathing by him, and attempts at giving CPR failed. It was nearly 20 minutes — upon arrival at the nearby emergency department of the local hospital — before effective oxygenation was restored. However, by this time there had been major irreversible brain damage which has left him in a persistent vegetative state.
Although the near drowning was not witnessed by the lifeguards,the entire event was captured and recorded by a surveillance camera which the club had in place which viewed the pool. This recording dramatically showed the entire tragic situation unfolding — including the young man laying on the pool floor for two and a half (2 ½) minutes while both lifeguards had their backs to that entire half of the pool where he was submerged.
This young man had received treatment over the previous five (5) years for epileptic seizures which had been difficult to control by his physicians with medications, and in fact his doctor had stopped the anti-seizure medication just two (2) months before this swimming incident occurred — thinking that it was not helping anyway. While not definite, the likelihood is that he suffered an epileptic seizure while he was swimming laps and that is what caused him to have the near-drowning episode.
In addition to other expert witnesses, Tabak Law Firm hired the premier lifeguarding authority who owns and operates the largest international company for water safety procedures; in addition, two other lifeguarding and recreational water safety experts were retained and with this forceful and unimpeachable expert testimony, a significant 8-figure settlement from the club’s insurance company was reached — three (3) days before the case was scheduled to start trial, and exactly one-year after the tragic occurrence. In addition, a further settlement in the 7-figures was reached with the doctors who had most recently taken this young man off of all anti-seizure medications.
