Disney sued over a wedgie at TL

[Chi84]

Crime victims do not get to decide if charges are dropped.

Technically no, but it could be very difficult to prosecute a case without their voluntary cooperation.

 

[Lilofan]

Crime victims do not get to decide if charges are dropped.

That's exactly what the CM did. After lawyers continually met with her, she decided to drop the charges regarding the arrested and terminated HOB staff member.

 

[Chi84]

That's exactly what the CM did. After lawyers continually met with her, she decided to drop the charges regarding the arrested and terminated HOB staff member.

It’s a matter of terminology. Private persons can neither charge persons with crimes nor dismiss those charges once filed. These are actions reserved to the State. But in common parlance it’s often said that a crime victim “drops” charges when they no longer wish to cooperate with the prosecution of the charged offense.

 

[flynnibus]

I don't think there is enough force created by the water to injure a male (beyond some short term pain if the force is applied just right).

Imagine a male that is uh.. 'unsupported' and his package getting outside the protected crotch area and under them. Then you basically have the scenario of when you are skipping over the water.. someone trying to grab the package and drag it behind you. And that's on top of any slamming up and down that is possible if the rider is skipping.

The question here is if there is enough force created by fabric being "yanked," for lack of a better word, hard enough inside of the lady parts for the friction created to cause a serious injury.

The point of their complaint is not that 'friction' caused any of her injuries, but the violent forcing of water into her that the wedgie allowed (they claim). The reason you are asked to cross your legs is keep your feet the leading edge that is in contact with the water.. acting as your breakwater/wedge to prevent other 'surfaces' from taking the brunt of the water's impact. Keeping your feet down is also intended to minimize you skipping over the water.. by instead having you 'plow' into the water to slow down.

My gut says that the water would tend to flow around the body and swimsuit enough that it would not reach high enough pressure to apply an intense enough force. It's not the same as shooting the output of a pressure washer into somebody's crotch where the water pressure has already been created. In the incident being described the pressure is created by the body/fabric trying to displace the water. However, my gut isn't scientific proof so experiments and calculations would need to be done.

You also need to consider the sudden impact scenario.

Remember the line about "its not the speed that kills, it's the sudden stop" - Applies here as well, If you are skipping over the water instead of plowing through it, you maintain high speed, and if you suddenly hit the water 'open' and not in a wedge shape, you get a much more severe slam. Including the kind of impact that could cause skin to split.

 

[EricsBiscuit]

Scientific proof isn't required to prove causation in a case like this. Under the common law principle of res ipsa loquitur ("the thing speaks for itself"), which applies in tort cases in Florida and most other American jurisdictions, a reasonable finder of fact (that is, a jury, or in the case of a bench trial, a judge) need only conclude that a 30-year-old woman who looks and feels healthy and uninjured at the top of a waterslide within Disney's sole exclusive control does not arrive at the bottom seconds later, gushing blood from internal lacerations so extensive that her bowel is protruding into her vaginal cavity, in the absence of some negligence on the part of Disney. (*As such, if you were a juror, it would be your duty to apply that common-sense standard as the judge described it to you. You could not substitute your personal notions of what might be proved with pressure washers and crotch test dummies, because the results of any such tests would be irrelevant.)

After that, the fact-finder's job is to determine whether the injured woman or any other person bears any proportional share of responsibility for her injuries (e.g., if she purposely disregarded safety instructions) that reduces Disney's share of liability, as the designer/builder/owner/operator of the slide.

For negligence, it’s the breach of the standard of care that causes the damages. She has to show that Disney breached its standard of care and that it caused her injuries to prove that Disney acted negligently.

 

[EricsBiscuit]

One way Disney could be liable would be if they didn’t provide reasonable care after noticing an injured guest who got off the slide. Even if their slide wasn’t the cause of the injury, failing to provide reasonable care to the injured guest would breach their standard of care because their instrumentality (the slide) was involved. Reasonable care can be just be as simple as calling for emergency help.

 

[Weather_Lady]

For negligence, it’s the breach of the standard of care that causes the damages. She has to show that Disney breached its standard of care and that it caused her injuries to prove that Disney acted negligently.

My answer was specific to causation because that's what the post I was responding to addressed.

However, please look up res ipsa loquitur. It typically disposes of the first three elements of a negligence cause of action, including breach of the duty of reasonable care. In fact, the existence of the duty of care by park operators like Disney to guests is well-settled as a matter of law, and wouldn't even need to be submitted to the jury.

We're really talking about all the same things. I'm just pointing out that the burden of proving each element is not as onerous and complicated as many posters seem to believe, because applicable legal doctrines allow negligence to be inferred. If the factfinder is convinced by a preponderance of the evidence that plaintiff sustained a kind or degree of injuries on the waterslide that would not be expected to occur in the absence of negligence (by the operator, an employee, the guest, a third party, or some combination thereof), then they can conclude that the plaintiff has established the initial elements of her claim. Florida's modified comparative negligence standard also comes into play, but that goes way beyond the subject at hand.

 

[Weather_Lady]

One way Disney could be liable would be if they didn’t provide reasonable care after noticing an injured guest who got off the slide. Even if their slide wasn’t the cause of the injury, failing to provide reasonable care to the injured guest would breach their standard of care because their instrumentality (the slide) was involved. Reasonable care can be just be as simple as calling for emergency help.

Yes, but she is not alleging that anyone delayed or denied her medical attention. This is more of a straightforward PI case alleging that the water slide was unsafe, with additional claims of failure to warn, etc.

The actual complaint can be found here, for those who want to read it: https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/dis...gie-during-30th-birthday-celebration-lawsuit/

 

[Goofyernmost]

What makes you think it was a thong style?

The one I wore down that slide certainly wasn't, but it became one (front and back 🫨) by the time I reached the bottom!

Also, the injuries alleged here are internal in nature, which is what one would expect given a woman's anatomy.

I don't doubt that there was damage, I'm just bewildered how a part of the victim that was injured can handle the process of creating a human being and giving birth to that human doesn't make water pressure seem like it should be all that much of an issue. However, as I said, since I have never been a woman so without medical knowledge about such things do indeed think it might be possible, just confusing. As far as the thong style, it just seemed like that would be the more likely and logical connection to that type of injury. Not knowledge, just a guess.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I don't think there is enough force created by the water to injure a male (beyond some short term pain if the force is applied just right). The question here is if there is enough force created by fabric being "yanked," for lack of a better word, hard enough inside of the lady parts for the friction created to cause a serious injury.

I think it would take some experiments using dummies wearing a similar fitting swimsuit wired up with sensors to determine what the potential is. Absent those type of experiments, I, if I was a juror, would not be able to conclude that the injuries could have or should have been prevented by Disney.

My gut says that the water would tend to flow around the body and swimsuit enough that it would not reach high enough pressure to apply an intense enough force. It's not the same as shooting the output of a pressure washer into somebody's crotch where the water pressure has already been created. In the incident being described the pressure is created by the body/fabric trying to displace the water. However, my gut isn't scientific proof so experiments and calculations would need to be done.

As I said, I don't deny that there was an injury, but please don't downplay the volatility of the male anatomy in a situation like that. Those pieces part are located in almost exactly the same location on the body, male or female. Pressure washers would not be our friend either.

 

[Club Cooloholic]

I've been down that slide myself, with legs crossed tightly together at all times, and I did bounce around considerably at the bottom. During the "landing," my one-piece modest swimsuit was violently tugged into a Brazilian-style thong in both the front and back, with the sides of the legs having been pulled up over my pelvic bones, up to my waist. Spandex was painfully wedged into hallowed crevices where no spandex had ever trespassed before.

That being said, I just had to spend a few moments yanking everything back into place before standing up, in order to make myself family-friendly once again, and other than a tingling in my bum that told me I'd just received a free colonic, I don't recall any further discomfort after my suit was readjusted. The degree of genital injuries this woman describes is so much more dramatic that while it's surprising, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, particularly as her description of the experience itself (albeit not the injuries) isn't so far off from mine: perhaps, following the "eggshell skull" rule that's part of every Law 101 curriculum, she's just particularly delicate in that area.

Plus, I'm a skeptic when it comes to the misleading ways the media can report on these cases. Remember that "ridiculous" McDonald's coffee case we all heard mocked on the news and by pundits, until all the facts came out, and people realized that McDonalds had been knowingly inflicting serious burns on customers -- hundreds of them -- for years (while steadfastly refusing to brew coffee at a safer temperature, and paying to keep it all quiet)? In that case, the elderly plaintiff had been handed a cup of coffee through the drive-through window, so hot (per McDonald's own internal requirements) that when she accidentally spilled it, she suffered third degree burns to 6% of her body, including her entire genital area, in less than 3 seconds. McDonald's response was to offer her an insulting settlement that couldn't begin to pay her medical bills (which was all she'd asked them to do), hire a P.R. firm to mischaracterize the case in the media and stage fake protests calling for tort reform, and then insinuate during closing arguments that there weren't any damages to speak of, since an elderly woman has no real need for functioning genitals, anyway.

To make a short story long, I'll withhold my judgment on this one until we know more.

Total agreement. People can complain all they want about lawsuits but you don't get car recalls of faulty breaks because the car company found an issue then wants to help you. They do it only after determining that enough people have or will die or be injured to the point that it requires recalling the product or fixing it rather than dealing with more court cases. Tort law saves lives.

 

[Weather_Lady]

I don't doubt that there was damage, I'm just bewildered how a part of the victim that was injured can handle the process of creating a human being and giving birth to that human doesn't make water pressure seem like it should be all that much of an issue. However, as I said, since I have never been a woman so without medical knowledge about such things do indeed think it might be possible, just confusing. As far as the thong style, it just seemed like that would be the more likely and logical connection to that type of injury. Not knowledge, just a guess.

Photos of her swimsuit are annexed to the complaint. It was a modest 1-piece with full coverage on the bottom -- no thong, not even a high-cut leg.

The issue is that the combination of all that fabric being instantaneously forced inside of her body, and/or the pressure of the water rushing behind and around it, caused a traumatic injury, wherein the vaginal wall was completely eviscerated and the small bowel was protruding through the tear. And "rushing water" doesn't really begin to describe the amount of force that can be exerted internally when orifices aren't adequately protected and a person (male or female) hurtles into water. As impressive as the elasticity of the human vagina may be when it comes to delivering babies, the fact is that they're made from layers of tissue, like our skin, and can be torn to various degrees by obstetric trauma, rape, rough intercourse, or the introduction of any foreign body, including a powerful rush of water. When it's torn all the way through and the bowel is introduced, as is alleged here, it becomes a life-threatening emergency.

Water d*o*u*c*h*e injuries (that's the technical term, believe it or not, but I had to add the asterisks because it was getting censored) may not be commonplace, but they absolutely can and do happen. At least one cliff diver famously died from a perforated colon after he crashed into the water at the "wrong" angle. A 10-second Google search reveals a host of published medical case studies on the topic, including a 1998 article describing a virtually identical case of "Vaginal Evisceration Resulting From A Water-Slide Injury." See Journal of Trauma, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9498527/. See also, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada, "Water-Related Vaginal Injury: A Case Report and Review of the Literature,": https://www.jogc.com/article/S1701-2163(17)30814-9/fulltext; *Hong Kong Journal of Emergency Medicine, "A rare case of d*o*u*c*h*e injury sustained during water recreation activities : more protection will mean less injury,": https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/102490791602300507. If you're more interested in first-hand accounts, there are a number of colorful Reddit discussions warning about the dangers of vaginal and rectal injuries from pools, water sports, and water slides going back at least 15 years. Or, just talk to any experienced divers, water skiiers, jet skiiers, and water park employees you happen to know: they'll tell you.

Anecdotally -- and as I described more fully in an earlier post -- as a woman who's been down that slide when I was young and fit, and experienced for myself the ways it can rearrange a swimsuit and administer an unwelcome enema even when all instructions are followed to the letter -- the idea that this exact water slide can cause the kinds of injury alleged is not at all far-fetched.

*Footnote: The Hong Kong Journal of Emergency Medicine article is notable in that it suggests that the use of swim/watersport garments in thicker and more protective fabrics, such as the kind of neoprene used for wetsuits, significantly reduces the risk of these kinds of injuries. This makes the plaintiff's allegation that Disney could or should have ameliorated the risk by providing guests with some kind of protective clothing a little less out-of-left-field.

 

[Touchdown]

I know it’s too complex to relay but it’s really important on those slides to not only cross your arms and legs but to also arch your back and tilt your neck so as best you can to have your body essentially have 3 parts of your body touching the slide, the heel on the foot on the bottom of your cross and your two scapular wings on your shoulder. That way you have enough force to have your feet plow the water at the bottom and keep vulnerable stuff away from the water. That said, I still get a temporary thong at the bottom of those slides despite clenching. I’ve never been sucker punched in the nether region on a body slide before (did once on a toboggan mat slide when I sat to far back on the mat so that my bits hung past the mat though.)

 

[The Mom]

Photos of her swimsuit are annexed to the complaint. It was a modest 1-piece with full coverage on the bottom -- no thong, not even a high-cut leg.

The issue is that the combination of all that fabric being instantaneously forced inside of her body, and/or the pressure of the water rushing behind and around it, caused a traumatic injury, wherein the vaginal wall was completely eviscerated and the small bowel was protruding through the tear. And "rushing water" doesn't really begin to describe the amount of force that can be exerted internally when orifices aren't adequately protected and a person (male or female) hurtles into water. As impressive as the elasticity of the human vagina may be when it comes to delivering babies, the fact is that they're made from layers of tissue, like our skin, and can be torn to various degrees by obstetric trauma, rape, rough intercourse, or the introduction of any foreign body, including a powerful rush of water. When it's torn all the way through and the bowel is introduced, as is alleged here, it becomes a life-threatening emergency.

Water d*o*u*c*h*e injuries (that's the technical term, believe it or not, but I had to add the asterisks because it was getting censored) may not be the norm, but they absolutely can and do happen. At least one cliff diver famously died from a perforated colon after he crashed into the water at the "wrong" angle. A 10-second Google search reveals a host of published medical case studies on the topic, including a 1998 article describing a virtually identical case of "Vaginal Evisceration Resulting From A Water-Slide Injury." See Journal of Trauma, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9498527/. See also, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada, "Water-Related Vaginal Injury: A Case Report and Review of the Literature,": https://www.jogc.com/article/S1701-2163(17)30814-9/fulltext; *Hong Kong Journal of Emergency Medicine, "A rare case of d*o*u*c*h*e injury sustained during water recreation activities : more protection will mean less injury,": https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/102490791602300507. If you're more interested in first-hand accounts, there are a number of colorful Reddit discussions warning about the dangers of vaginal and rectal injuries from pools and water slides going back at least 15 years. Or, just talk to any experienced cliff divers, water skiiers, jet skiiers, and water park employees you happen to know: they'll tell you.

Anecdotally -- and as I described more fully in an earlier post -- as a woman who's been down that slide when I was young and fit, and experienced for myself the ways it can rearrange a swimsuit and administer an unwelcome enema even when all instructions are followed to the letter -- the idea that this exact water slide can cause the kinds of injury alleged is not at all far-fetched.

*Footnote: The Hong Kong Journal of Emergency Medicine article is notable in that it suggests that the use of swim/watersport garments in thicker and more protective fabrics, such as neoprene, significantly reduces the risk of these kinds of injuries. This makes the plaintiff's allegation that Disney could or should have ameliorated the risk by providing guests with some kind of protective clothing a little less out-of-left-field.

You and I found the same article - I was ready to paste it when I saw your post. And, as stated in the articles, this is not a common injury, but is also not unknown.

If the warning signs specifically warn that women may be at higher risk for pressure induced injuries then they are truly riding at their own risk - just like warnings about pregnant women, people with back or cardiac issues, etc.

 

[Weather_Lady]

You and I found the same article - I was ready to paste it when I saw your post. And, as stated in the articles, this is not a common injury, but is also not unknown.

If the warning signs specifically warn that women may be at higher risk for pressure induced injuries then they are truly riding at their own risk - just like warnings about pregnant women, people with back or cardiac issues, etc.

Warning signs can serve as a defense to liability, but only to the extent they are deemed effective: they're not a complete shield. Much depends on whether the warning is prominently posted, highly visible, well-lit, easy to understand, and describes the dangers involved with sufficient specificity that a reasonable guest would understand precisely what kind of risk they're assuming.

I don't believe it's relevant in this case, however. I'm not aware that warnings of any kind about the risk of traumatic vaginal or rectal injuries (or any injuries specifically related to high-pressure water at all) have ever been posted for Humunga Cowabunga -- although it's highly possible that such warnings may eventually be added to current signage as a direct result of this lawsuit, either by a grant of injunctive relief, or by Disney's voluntary choice. The WDW website says only that:

• For safety, you should be in good health and free from heart conditions, back or neck problems, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure. Expectant mothers should not ride.

 

[Lilofan]

Warning signs can serve as a defense to liability, but only to the extent they are deemed effective: they're not a complete shield. Much depends on whether the warning is prominently posted, highly visible, well-lit, easy to understand, and describes the dangers involved with sufficient specificity that a reasonable guest would understand precisely what kind of risk they're assuming.

I don't believe it's relevant in this case, however. I'm not aware that warnings of any kind about the risk of traumatic vaginal or rectal injuries (or any injuries specifically related to high-pressure water at all) have ever been posted for Humunga Cowabunga -- although it's highly possible that such warnings may eventually be added to current signage as a direct result of this lawsuit, either by a grant of injunctive relief, or by Disney's voluntary choice. The WDW website says only that:

• For safety, you should be in good health and free from heart conditions, back or neck problems, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure. Expectant mothers should not ride.

Guests read the signage like someone reads all the iTunes verbiage before signing off.

 

[Bastet]

Has anybody managed to find out if the accident was reported at the time. From the description of the injuries it seems that the ride would have had to be closed yet I didnt see this on the quarterly accident report.
While there is a known risk of injury of this type, if this is the only one in 30 years and hundreds of thousands of riders it seems more of a freak occurance and not necessarily something you would pre warn every rider about. If this had happenend before, on this or other disney water slides surely it would have been reported on.

 

[Nubs70]

You and I found the same article - I was ready to paste it when I saw your post. And, as stated in the articles, this is not a common injury, but is also not unknown.

If the warning signs specifically warn that women may be at higher risk for pressure induced injuries then they are truly riding at their own risk - just like warnings about pregnant women, people with back or cardiac issues, etc.

Impact force on 1 sq in of a 120 lb object traveling at 40 mph.

Sounds like a college physics exam question.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Impact force on 1 sq in of a 120 lb object traveling at 40 mph.

Sounds like a college physics exam question.

If in a confined path that might be true and the reason why the power washer works. Not an open water shoot with easy movement of the water. Water disperses easily and although it could be quite painful, I think 120 lbs. at 40 mph is a little bit high. The water can disperse in all directions, up, down, to the left, to the right, sideways and every single angle known to man as well as up at an angle and down at angle. Water will wear things down over a period of thousands of years, but not during one splash. It had to be a freak accident.

 

[DisneyCane]

Impact force on 1 sq in of a 120 lb object traveling at 40 mph.

Sounds like a college physics exam question.

It's a fluid dynamics question and I'd imagine it is quite complex. I certainly don't know how to calculate it.