On July 16, 2022, Robin F. of DeForest, Wisconsin sustained debilitating, hydrostatic orifice injuries when she fell off the back of a Bombardier Sea-Doo and came into contact with the blast of water emanating from the watercraft’s jet propulsion system.
Shortly after the accident, which occurred on Lake Wisconsin in Sauk County, Wisconsin, Robin was rushed to a nearby emergency room for life-saving medical intervention. The damage to her rectum and colon was so severe that she was forced to undergo the surgical implantation of a colostomy bag. Like all previous orifice injury clients, Robin had no idea that this type of life threatening/altering injury could result from something as common and seemingly harmless as slipping off the back of a personal watercraft.
BRP has been sued dozens of times over the past three decades by women (and men) that, like Robin, sustained severe internal orifice injuries upon falling off the back of BRP manufactured PWCs. So not only is BRP well aware of the nature, mechanism and severity of PWC orifice injuries, but it is also aware of the fact that such injuries have continued to occur on its products for over thirty years (and, not surprisingly, with increased frequency as increasingly more powerful machines are manufactured and released into the market). Likewise, there is a mountain of evidence establishing BRP’s knowledge of the existence of safer alternative designs which would prevent injuries such as those sustained by Robin, including a raised seatback with more lumbar support, BRP owned patents of modified seat designs and handholds (with the stated purpose of reducing the risk of rearward ejections), as well as the late BRP engineer Sam Spade’s sketches/drawings of a pivoting seatback.
Robin is being represented by Mazzola Law Firm, PLLC. The case, styled Robin F. v. Bombardier Recreational Products, Inc., was filed on May 18, 2023 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.
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