On June 20, 2023, 29-year-old Brandi B. of Durant, Oklahoma sustained debilitating, hydrostatic orifice injuries when she fell off the back of a 2019 BRP Sea-Doo RXT 230 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 Texoma in Bryan County, Oklahoma, Brandi 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, Brandi 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 Brandi, 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 Brandi, 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.
Brandi is being represented by Mazzola Law Firm, PLLC and Edwards & Patterson Law. The case, styled Brandi B. v. Bombardier Recreational Products, Inc., will be filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
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