Colorado Man Could Sue Divers Who Saved Him From Submerged Car for $500,000
48 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Otterman;44234970]Seriously?
If I was saved, I would be thankful towards those people that saved me. Why sue them? They saved your life, now they have to pay for your sorry ass too? You should not be in the water with the car in the first place.
People these days, they need to understand the concept of thanking someone instead of taking it for granted.[/QUOTE]
In America you sue first and thank later.
[QUOTE=Otterman;44234970]Seriously?
If I was saved, I would be thankful towards those people that saved me. Why sue them? They saved your life, now they have to pay for your sorry ass too? You should not be in the water with the car in the first place.
People these days, they need to understand the concept of thanking someone instead of taking it for granted.[/QUOTE]
A lot of people if told they could get half a million would go for it. Im not condoning his actions but you have to understand how much money that half a mill is and how many people would do terrible things for less than that much.
[editline]14th March 2014[/editline]
I mean people kill for less than that much money, greed is a powerful emotion
[QUOTE=Otterman;44234970]Seriously?
If I was saved, I would be thankful towards those people that saved me. Why sue them? They saved your life, now they have to pay for your sorry ass too? You should not be in the water with the car in the first place.
People these days, they need to understand the concept of thanking someone instead of taking it for granted.[/QUOTE]
the dudes who rescued him didn't actually know he was still alive, they just assumed no one could have survived the crash and didn't do any of the things they were supposed to do to confirm that. i don't know about suing the rescuers personally, but there is a perfectly legitimate concern there. plus if the road can just lead you to dive straight into a creek when it gets washed out, it really should have been closed at the time - a sharp drop into freezing cold water is an entirely reasonable safety hazard that should have been accounted for.
[QUOTE=Sweeney;44234849]Why should he win? If he paid attention to the road conditions he wouldnt have been in that mess in the first place. Throw the case out.[/QUOTE]
Even though its his fault he was in the position, rescuers followed improper procedures.
While this guy was underwater about to die, people were treating the car as if it were empty. They did not even check to see if anyone was dying or dead inside the car before trying to remove the car.
If you were in his position, how exactly would you feel?
Youre trapped in a car underwater, slowly drowning. You hear voices outside, get hopeful that you will be saved. Then, you realize.. they arent here to save you, they are taking their time to remove the car from the creek, while you are drowning inside.
You are realizing that these so called rescuers havent even checked inside the car, and its very likely that you are going to die. Suddenly, one of the guys goes 'Whoops, forgot to check inside' and finds you
[QUOTE=Keys;44234218]
The FUCK america?!
[/QUOTE]
The most lawyers.
You know the 500,000 dollar thing is practically meaningless, right
in reality all of these cases end up settling for way, way less than what the news articles put them up as
And as for the situation itself, I imagine it was probably a choice between suing or going into crushing debt because of our fucking insane healthcare system. Not exactly an easy choice to make, and I doubt that half of you would be so adamant if you were in his position.
[QUOTE=Keys;44234218]That is the worst aspect that has come out of American society. Lawsuits.
In today's age you can sue for damn near anything, I have two stories that stand out in my mind that happened here in Colorado (as well!);
1) A guy breaks into a house, via the vents above the Garage. While he is crawling through them the vent gives out and drops the man into the locked Garage. Because the tenants were on vacation the man remained trapped in the home for two or so weeks, surviving off of Dog food and water from an inside spigot. He sued the family for endangerment and something else. He also won. (DESPITE THE FACT HE WAS ORIGINALLY BREAKING AND ENTERING!)
2) Another guy breaks into a home while the residents are at work, while making his way through the house he steps on a toy car in the kitchen, performs a mid-air somersault and lands on his back, injuring his spine and neck to a point where he remains where he was until the home owners came home and found them. He too, sued the homeowners for security and lack of safety around the house. Saying if he got hurt, their kids and friends/family could also have been hurt.
The FUCK america?!
Lawsuits are the biggest leech to an American's life. You can no longer be saved, without fear of being sued for helping or making a mistake. I mean seriously? What kind of society hurts the very people who try to help them?
That alone shows a big problem brewing beneath.
I dont think he should win the case and be rewarded the $500,000 dollars. They didn't put him there, they didn't cause the skies to rain, and they were trying to do their jobs when they discovered him.
Its unfortunate he is having night terrors, but he will eventually get over them. If he needs help, then he should seek therapy. Shoulder hurts? Yoga, compresses, and massages. I guarantee it'll improve within a year.[/QUOTE]
Money is the driving force of the USA. Not A driving force, THE driving force. There are people who wake up and it's their job to look for ways to get money from people. You could hire the US military if you told congress that they'd get a penny for every dollar used in the war they love money so much. And it goes all the way to the bottom. People on wellfare or foodstamps because they're lazy but convincing, people who sue for ridiculous shit because easy money, and they win, too, because this country's second biggest flaw is it's too fucking soft on things, and the times that they are hard on things it's for something absurd, such as a poptart in the shape of a gun in an elementary school
This country's going to shit, it's best to leave while you can. But don't tell anyone because there's a thing called an Exit Tax. Supposedly to deter Tax Avoidance
Money. Our flag should be changed to
[img]http://s3.amazonaws.com/thumbnails.illustrationsource.com/huge.6.32469.JPG[/img]
He should sue God for letting him crash in the first place: [url]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/14/man-saved-from-submerged-car-credits-gods-grace-for-the-rescue-and-prepares-to-sue-his-first-responders/[/url]
Here he says it's God's grace that saved him.
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;44233802]That's not funny.
He was almost overlooked by rescuers who thought that there was nobody in the car, or that nobody in the car was even alive. It's a legitimate grievance, even if his reaction seems overboard at first.[/QUOTE]
Were his rescuers emergency services or just passing citizens?
Because one of those groups has an obligation to do things by procedure, and the other is made up of untrained people who aren't obligated to do anything in particular.
That's some chinese bullshit right there
[QUOTE=Strontboer;44246225]That's some chinese bullshit right there[/QUOTE]
oh dear god, if anybody says it.
Also, there's a rather surprising amount of cars in the lakes, rivers, etc. So, I could see why the divers could think no one was there.
[QUOTE=Keys;44234218]That is the worst aspect that has come out of American society. Lawsuits.
In today's age you can sue for damn near anything, I have two stories that stand out in my mind that happened here in Colorado (as well!);
1) A guy breaks into a house, via the vents above the Garage. While he is crawling through them the vent gives out and drops the man into the locked Garage. Because the tenants were on vacation the man remained trapped in the home for two or so weeks, surviving off of Dog food and water from an inside spigot. He sued the family for endangerment and something else. He also won. (DESPITE THE FACT HE WAS ORIGINALLY BREAKING AND ENTERING!)
2) Another guy breaks into a home while the residents are at work, while making his way through the house he steps on a toy car in the kitchen, performs a mid-air somersault and lands on his back, injuring his spine and neck to a point where he remains where he was until the home owners came home and found them. He too, sued the homeowners for security and lack of safety around the house. Saying if he got hurt, their kids and friends/family could also have been hurt.
The FUCK america?!
Lawsuits are the biggest leech to an American's life. You can no longer be saved, without fear of being sued for helping or making a mistake. I mean seriously? What kind of society hurts the very people who try to help them?
That alone shows a big problem brewing beneath.
I dont think he should win the case and be rewarded the $500,000 dollars. They didn't put him there, they didn't cause the skies to rain, and they were trying to do their jobs when they discovered him.
Its unfortunate he is having night terrors, but he will eventually get over them. If he needs help, then he should seek therapy. Shoulder hurts? Yoga, compresses, and massages. I guarantee it'll improve within a year.[/QUOTE]
i'm gonna douse you with KNOWLEDGE right now: those stories are, in fact, just stories.
there's this concept in the united states known as "tort tales" (a tort is basically a suit for damages). they're grossly exaggerated stories that deal misinformation in order to dissuade the american public from using litigation as a means of striking back at corporate interests.
they're also unilaterally created by conservative think tanks. this "litigation crisis" literally doesn't exist. lawsuits have not been increasing in number, they've been [I]decreasing[/I] in number since the early 70s when the united states began using methods of alternative dispute resolution. these tort tales are designed to make people believe that anyone who files a lawsuit against a business is being completely ridiculous and casting off personal responsibility - when in reality, it's the businesses that are casting off [I]their[/I] personal responsibility.
the two stories that you just posted are actually adaptations of an event in which a kid climbed on top of his school. he was there after hours, and went on top of the building to get access to a light so that he could illuminate a basketball court or something. he was above the school gym. this gym had skylights in its ceiling, however, the school had decided to pave over them with a thin layer of rubber / asphalt / something else, forget specifically what. the student walked over the roof, on top of a skyllight, fell through, and broke his spinal column, becoming a quadriplegic.
the student sued the school, because they didn't place any sort of warning that there were windows that could be fallen through. and that's a pretty legitimate case. the school (inadvertently, of course) forgot to warn about a [I]severe[/I] safety concern, and while the student fucked up on his own, had the school placed any sort of warnings he would not have fallen through and had his life ruined.
90% of the time that you hear about a lawsuit, it's probably got some actual depth to it that you're not hearing about. these cases are picked up by conservative think tanks, warped to the point that it makes it seem as if the suit is completely ridiculous and completely the fault of the victim, and then spits it out to the news media so that it can be spread. and of course, the media, who's looking for views and something sensational, plays into it completely. it is entirely an effort to create a system of tort reform that would effectively reduce corporate responsibility to zero in all instances.
the most famous tort tale of all time is the mcdonald's coffee case. the reality behind the commonly satirized case is disgusting.
[editline]15th March 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Maloof?;44246125]Were his rescuers emergency services or just passing citizens?
Because one of those groups has an obligation to do things by procedure, and the other is made up of untrained people who aren't obligated to do anything in particular.[/QUOTE]
"first responders" = it was emergency services
[QUOTE=Keys;44234218]
Its unfortunate he is having night terrors, but he will eventually get over them. If he needs help, then he should seek therapy. Shoulder hurts? Yoga, compresses, and massages. I guarantee it'll improve within a year.[/QUOTE]Is yoga and massages going to fix his $40,000 hospital debt too?
[quote]His vehicle hit part of a washed-out road and then plunged into a creek.[/quote]
I would like to hear an explanation of what this means. Is he saying he was driving along a normal looking road and the water washed it out from under him? Or is he saying he saw that water was washing out the road but he kept driving on anyways because the county had not blocked off the road?
If it's the second one, then he's a dumbass who is lucky the county isn't suing him for rescue costs.
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;44246760]I would like to hear an explanation of what this means. Is he saying he was driving along a normal looking road and the water washed it out from under him? Or is he saying he saw that water was washing out the road but he kept driving on anyways because the county had not blocked off the road?
If it's the second one, then he's a dumbass who is lucky the county isn't suing him for rescue costs.[/QUOTE]
looking at photos of 'washed out roads' on google, you get a lot of this-
[t]http://i.imgur.com/dF4o9xe.png[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/6Q9dOjt.png[/t]
it could very well be that:
• the soil underneath had already washed out, but the concrete surface hadn't collapsed til he drove over
• it was already collapsed but there was bad visibility (heavy rain, night time, etc)
• (most likely) it had been broken, but the flood waters were level with the road so it only looked like shallow water over top, but was deep enough to lose him in
it's really bothering me how many people failed to read the article and skipped over the fact they weren't actively trying to save him, just recover the car. If they took any longer he'd have been dead and they would have thought he died well before they got there
[QUOTE=BrickInHead;44246418]the most famous tort tale of all time is the mcdonald's coffee case. the reality behind the commonly satirized case is disgusting.[/QUOTE]
for those who know only superficially about the case, the woman who sued actually received very serious third degree burns from the coffee, burns which covered 6% of her body. for some sense of how bad that is, amputation is sometimes necessitated by third degree burns, and it's only one degree below entirely exposed bone. she required numerous skin grafts and two years of medical treatment afterwards.
the way that everyone bought into McDonalds' spinning of the case is as ridiculous as it is sickening.
[QUOTE=No_Excuses;44233657]$40k medical bill for having an accident. What a shit system.[/QUOTE]
shoulda went to [url]www.healthcare.gov[/url]
[QUOTE=Electrocuter;44233729]I understand suing the county maybe but the fucking rescuers because they didn't spot him sooner? Would it have been better if they didn't spot him at all?
Maybe he should sue the health system instead.[/QUOTE]
He's probably not directly suing the people as persons, but as workers as first responders. Remember that it was their job to check this case and they didn't. But generally speaking, as it was under their job description, the place they did the work with carries the risk, which is generally insured for this kind of thing even in the case the divers are found liable, which they probably won't be.
Also 500k on a 40k medical bill isn't all that insane, most of all when one includes the psychological as well as long term medical costs.
Throw inability to work for at least a month, a few other things and the price seems pretty in line.
[QUOTE=Cone;44247166]for those who know only superficially about the case, the woman who sued actually received very serious third degree burns from the coffee, burns which covered 6% of her body. for some sense of how bad that is, amputation is sometimes necessitated by third degree burns, and it's only one degree below entirely exposed bone. she required numerous skin grafts and two years of medical treatment afterwards.
the way that everyone bought into McDonalds' spinning of the case is as ridiculous as it is sickening.[/QUOTE]
I think the problem is, that people forget that liquids can superheat which was probably the case in the MCd case and only assumed it was at 60-80 degrees at most, wheras the coffee might have been actually above 100.
[QUOTE=Cone;44247166]for those who know only superficially about the case, the woman who sued actually received very serious third degree burns from the coffee, burns which covered 6% of her body. for some sense of how bad that is, amputation is sometimes necessitated by third degree burns, and it's only one degree below entirely exposed bone. she required numerous skin grafts and two years of medical treatment afterwards.
the way that everyone bought into McDonalds' spinning of the case is as ridiculous as it is sickening.[/QUOTE]
this while a component actually isn't even what makes it terrible in my eyes
the very same mcdonalds that she visited had several previous incidences of the exact same problem, and each time they reached private settlement with the parties in regards to covering their medical bills. when it came to the famous woman, she reached out to a lawyer who had either knowledge of or was directly involved with (i forget which tbh) the previous cases, and suggested that she go that route. she had lost her job and asked for a really modest sum to just cover her medical bills (i think it was in the range of 20-40k?) and that time mcdonalds said NOPE
well turns out that the reason that this specific mcdonalds had so many occurences of this happening is because they were actually brewing their coffee at illegal temperatures because it saves money. the hotter you brew coffee at the fewer beans are consumed in the process, so they were producing coffee at far beyond the acceptable range for human consumption.
[editline]15th March 2014[/editline]
there was a historical record of this exact incident occuring and the franchise (and corporate) did [I]nothing[/I] to prevent it from reoccuring in an effort to save money
[editline]15th March 2014[/editline]
the most disgusting part to me is that the poor woman was just trying to get her medical bills covered and they just looked at her and said "lolnope" after she lost her job because of her injuries
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