FOX News is reporting that video played at the opening of a wrongful death trial shows that one of two Hungarian tourists killed in a boat collision threw her life vest to a deckhand who jumped overboard just before the crash.
Attorney Robert Mongeluzzi said 16-year-old Dora Schwendtner threw her own life preserver to the deckhand moments before their sightseeing boat was run over by a tugboat-guided barge on Philadelphia’s Delaware River.
The families of Schwendtner and 20-year-old Szabolcs Prem, are suing the tour company and the tugboat operator, saying unclear safety policies and ineffective training caused the collision.
Tug operator K-Sea Transportation and duck boat operator Ride the Ducks blamed each other Monday for causing the July 2010 crash.
Prem and Schwendtner, whose group was visiting the U.S. through a church exchange program, drowned when their amphibious tour boat capsized and sank after being struck by the barge on July 7, 2010.
Their families have filed wrongful death lawsuits against K-Sea Transportation of East Brunswick, N.J., which operated the tugboat guiding the barge upriver; Ride the Ducks of Norcross, Ga., which operated the tour boat; the city of Philadelphia, which owned the barge, and others. But before the wrongful death lawsuit may proceed, a judge must decide whether a limit should be set on the financial liability of the two boat owners. K-Sea and Ride the Ducks, citing an 1851 maritime law, want the judge to cap their financial liability based on the value of their own vessels involved in the crash: $1.65 million for the tug and $150,000 for the duck boat.
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