Resort Injury Lawyer Blog

Final Tally: 3 dead, 2 hospitalized with injuries in the Key West Super Boat World Championships.

Boating accidents are not uncommon in Florida, where tourists and residents alike enjoy nearly 1,200 miles of coastline, 7,700 lakes larger than 10 acres, and more than 11,000 miles of rivers, streams and waterways. Unfortunately, residents and visitors alike are also killed and injured as a result of water skiing, jet skiing, pleasure boating, and many other kinds of boating activities.

Last Wednesday, the opening day of the Key West Super Boat World Championships began with a bad omen for the multi-day event. Two of the racers, both visiting Florida from Missouri, were killed when their 46-foot Skater with four 1,200-horsepower engines crashed in Key West Harbor after the boat barrel-rolled and landed upside down, reported the Miami Herald. Despite being pulled onto a rescue boat by paramedics who jumped out of helicopters in the rescue attempt, the two men were pronounced dead at the Lower Keys Medical Center that afternoon.

On Friday, another racer was killed when his 28-foot boat with twin 850-horsepower engines rolled near an offshore turn. He was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and died early Saturday morning.

The event closed on Sunday with two more racers suffering injuries. Two men from New Jersey racing a 38-foot boat with twin 750-horsepower engines smacked their boat into a wave. One suffered a torn ear and possible concussion and was evacuated to Jackson Memorial Hospital. The other was treated at Lower Keys Medical Center. So far it is believed that neither men suffered life-threatening injuries.

In 2007 there were 77 fatalities caused by boating accidents in Florida alone, which led the entire country. With over 1 million registered vessels in Florida, there were over 650 reported boating accidents resulting in injury, death or serious damage. It is estimated that there are another 350,000 non-registered boats using Florida's waterways.

In a 14-page report, the National Transportation Safety Board cited employee errors as the primary causes of the accident, but added that "Walt Disney World Resort's lack of standard operating procedures leading to an unsafe practice when reversing trains" was also a factor in the accident.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had previously cited Disney with four safety violations in December 2009 upon concluding its investigation of the accident, and fined the resort $35,200.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that "an employee in the monorail's maintenance shop, which controls the system's track switches, failed to properly position the switch beam. It also found that the manager who was temporarily serving as the monorail system's coordinator -- relaying commands between the maintenance shop and the train drivers -- was not in the system's control tower during the track-switch procedure, where he could have seen that the track had not been properly aligned."

Disney's policies, however, did not require the central coordinator to be station in the control tower when directing monorail movements, nor that the employee in the monorail shop verify the beam realignment. Employees were also not required to follow an operating guide with regards to moving from the front cab of the train to the back cab before driving in reverse.

A deadly combination of factors in a Philadelphia waterway has left two tourists dead, a father of two young children jailed for a year, and several lawsuits still pending.

On the day of the incident, the operator of a 33-foot "Ride the Ducks" sightseeing boat anchored in a shipping channel of the Delaware River after detecting smoke and suspecting an onboard fire, cited CNN International. There were 35 passengers and two crew members on board.

Video footage shown on The Today Show revealed the shocking footage of a towed 250-foot sludge barge running over and submerging the tourist boat in a matter of seconds. Amazingly, only two tourists died in the accident.

The pilot of the tugboat towing the barge has been sentenced to one year and one day in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in the incident, after teary pleading by himself and his wife in court for leniency with the potential four-year sentence. The pilot admitted he was distracted by his cell phone and laptop prior to the collision, in part due to a call from his wife regarding complications that morning during their 6-year-old's eye surgery.

Litigation is still pending with K-Sea Transportation of East Brunswick, New Jersey and Ride the Ducks of Norcross, Georgia. Both companies have asked the federal government to limit their liability in the incident, according to the CNN report.

An NTSB report showed several people involved were on cell phones or computers at the time of the accident. Driving While Distracted now carries new meaning. CNN reported that an NTSB representative said the incident was "another tragic example of the deadliness of distraction."

While this incident occurred on a waterway, cell phone distraction while driving has been an issue of increasing concern for years. As of December 2008, there were 271 million cell phones in use in the United States, representing 84% of the country's population. Drivers are increasingly distracting themselves by chatting, texting and emailing while on the road, often resulting in dangerous accidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that driving while distracted contributes to one in every four car crashes. By some estimates, in as many as half of all crashes (there were six million last year), cell phone use was involved.

The widespread awareness of this problem has prompted government concern and states are now addressing the issue legislatively. Some states and municipalities have acted to ban texting while driving and/or driving with a handheld device, while six states - including Florida - have laws that prohibit local jurisdictions from enacting restrictions. In other states, localities are allowed to ban cell phone use or texting while driving. In October 2009, President Obama issued an order banning all 4.5 million federal employees from texting while driving.