Originally Posted By: supton
I just heard about this story last night. I'm withholding judgement, to see if it's just about trying to cover $40k in expenses; or if there is a legitimate claim to negligence. Perhaps there is more to the story than a soundbite.
That said, if given the chance between dying versus paying out an exorbitant amount (let's say it's one to two years salary) I'm going to say I'd take the bill, and be happy about it. Maybe not every day, but I'd be hard pressed to sue over it. Sometimes you have to suck it up and move on.
They do have video of the rescue, and from watching it I can completely see why the rescue took two hours, and why they were unaware that someone was still alive in the car.
The water was raging and moving quick, and in addition to that it was filled with mud making it opaque. Even in the best dive gear, it would be totally impossible to see your hand in front of your face in that situation, let alone to look through a window of a mostly flooded car to see if someone is inside. That's not even something you could reasonably expect someone to be able to do. All the rescuers could do in that situation was to extract the car, which they did. Now, if they just sat there on the bank and said "well, I guess we can't get to it today," that would be different. But they did make an active effort to get the car out and put themselves at risk to do so. There are no guarantees in situations like this, and it was physically impossible to see if someone was in the car. That's why I'm leaning towards the claim being ridiculous.
On top of that, this would not be so outrageous if the amount the guy was seeking was somewhat inline with his claimed $40K in medical bills. How does $40K turn into half a million dollars? If he was just trying to recover medical costs (which he likely would have incurred anyway flipping a car over in a creek), court/lawyer costs, etc., then maybe it would look like there was some legitimacy here. But $500K? That looks like a cash grab.
While there may be a legitimate claim that the city/town/whoever should have blocked off the road, even that is stretching it. Maybe their resources were tied up and they just weren't able to get to that road. At some point, common sense should still kick in and say "don't drive on a washed out road...pay attention to what is ahead of you, especially if conditions are bad." The fact he is suing in part over the municipality not putting up warning signs implies that the road was washed out before he drove off into the creek, and it was not a sudden thing.
By all appearances, it seems this guy did very little to prevent the accident in the first place, and now wants it to be a lottery. Granted, we don't know EVERYTHING that happened here, but everything about it so far looks ridiculous. There are no guarantees in a situation like this, and considering they were trying to get his car out of a still flooded and rapidly moving creek, it appears a reasonable effort was made on the part of the first responders.
$40K in medical bills sucks, but guess what, [censored] happens, especially when you don't pay attention to where you are going in bad weather. Most of us try to avoid potholes...how did he miss this unless the road suddenly gave way? That's life. Bad things happen, and sometimes it's really not someone else's fault. Suck it up and move on. Don't be a [censored].
The worst part is, that $500K or whatever settlement could be rewarded is not going to come out of a piggy bank in the sky or a money tree, it will come out of the budget for the emergency services in that municipality, which could severely impact their ability to provide services to other people. That's shameful.
