The family of a Deltona man who drowned near Longboat Pass in July 2009 is demanding a jury trial in its wrongful death suit against Manatee County.
The family of Jose H. Medina, 30, also has sued McCulley Marine Services, Pine Island Towing Co., Tug Champion, John McCulley and Michael Hollingsworth in Manatee County Circuit Court.
Three people — Medina, wife Christie Soto and a friend — were riding a Jet Ski-type watercraft about 2 p.m. July 4, 2009, when the accident happened, according to Manatee County Emergency Medical Service reports.
Medina was on his wife’s watercraft when its engine failed. He attempted to restart the craft, but, according to the suit filed by Soto on behalf of herself and her five children, Medina “was swept by the strong outgoing ebb tidal current within the waters towards Longboat Pass.”
Authorities said witnesses saw Medina, who was wearing a lifejacket, trying to pull the watercraft to the shore at Coquina Beach Bayside, but then he was no longer visible.
Medina was swept toward a barge and forced underneath, where he was trapped “rather than being allowed to drift freely with the channel of water pushing through Longboat Pass, thereby causing his tragic death by drowning,” the suit alleges.
Soto, represented by the Faddis and Warner law firm of Casselberry, is seeking unspecified damages in the suit, which complains that the defendants used the location as a staging area for a Manatee County artificial-reef project.
The complaint states, “It was absolutely foreseeable that if barging operations occurred within Coquina Beach and Bayside Park at times when the boating public would be expected to heavily populate the park, such barging operations would present an inherent danger to those members of the public taking advantage of the park’s amenities, including the park’s public boat ramp and the navigable waters immediately adjacent thereto.”
Soto first filed suit last December, but has amended the complaint several times.
Each complaint has produced a series of motions to dismiss and other challenges to the allegations from the defendants — the county, barge operators and the towing and tug companies.
The county, in its most recent filing, acknowledged that Medina was operating a personal watercraft on navigable U.S. waters and died as a result of drowning. But the county denied any wrongdoing.
Further, the county’s response states, “Defendants allege that the decedent’s damages, and therefore plaintiffs damages, were caused either in whole or in part by the decedent’s own acts of negligence, including but not limited to the failure to exercise reasonable care for the decedent’s own safety.”