On July 18, 2021, 21-year-old Chella P. of Cedar Grove, New Jersey sustained severe vaginal and rectal injuries when she fell off the back of a 2021 BRP Sea-Doo GTX and landed in the path of the high-pressure blast of water emanating from the PWC’s jet propulsion system. Immediately after falling off the back of the PWC, Chella was transported via ambulance to a nearby hospital and then airlifted to Robert Wood Johnson Hospital where she underwent life-saving medical intervention, including the surgical implantation of a colostomy bag.
BRP has been sued dozens of times over the past three decades by women (and men) that, like Chella, 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 Chella, 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.
Chella is being represented by Mazzola Law Firm, PLLC and Ronemus Vilensky, LLP. The case, styled Chella P. v. Bombardier Recreational Products, Inc., will be filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Trenton Division.
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