An Evening at an Amusement Center in Lake Worth, Florida Results in Tragic Consequences
You would never expect to go to an amusement center with your friends to have some fun one evening and end up with excruciating neck, back and abdominal pain after riding a virtual reality roller coaster. But that’s exactly what happened to this 27 year old single mom.
This victim and her girlfriend decided to try the virtual reality roller coaster and asked the attendant if it would be a problem for the friend to ride, as she was pregnant. The attendant said it would not be a problem, so the two climbed in to the virtual reality roller coaster and the attendant strapped them in for the ride.
Shortly after the ride started, the victim in this Florida premises liability/product liability case noticed that something was wrong and started screaming for the attendant to stop the ride. Unfortunately, the attendant did not hear her and the ride continued until its conclusion. During the ride, as the machine was turning upside down and twisting in all different directions, her shoulder harness malfunctioned and came loose, she was thrown about the ride and suffered severe injuries.
Immediately after getting off the ride, the victim made a complaint to the attendant and then to the management because she was in a lot of pain. However, she was not even taken seriously enough for the management to write a report regarding the incident.
The first thing the following morning, this victim went to the emergency room because she was in a tremendous amount of pain and the pain was not subsiding. She was treated and released from the hospital, still in a lot of pain. But, since she had no insurance, she was unable to treat with a physician as needed at that time.
The victim contacted Attorney Richard D. Schuler and requested that he represent her in this case. Mr. Schuler filed suit against the amusement center for failure to warn its guests of the dangerous condition of the ride, failing to conduct a reasonable inspection of the ride, and failure to hire and training operating personnel adequately, among others. He also filed suit against the manufacturer of the virtual reality roller coaster for failure to exercise reasonable care in the construction of this machine, and because the manufacturer was aware that there was a problem with the shoulder harness not holding and releasing during the ride. In fact, the manufacturer had developed a crotch strap and an automatic cut-off mechanism to stop the ride and address the problem if it arose, but had never installed these safety mechanisms on this particular machine.
Mr. Schuler was able to obtain medical treatment for this victim and over a three year period, she received constant medical care and several surgical procedures. She has been unable to work since this unfortunate incident and has been declared permanently disabled by the Social Security Administration. In the future, she will require additional surgery, which will include, but not limited to, lumbar disc replacement surgery.
After extensive investigation and litigation in this matter, Mr. Schuler secured a very substantial confidential settlement for the victim in this case. Now, even though this young mother still is not able to pick her young son up and play with him the way she would like to, she will be able to make a life for herself and her son and get the medical treatment she will need in the future.
