CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - A woman who lost her arm in a boating incident last summer, and has filed a lawsuit, is speaking out for the first time.
Deondra Scott, the victim, was near a motorboat that was rented on Lake Norman on June 25 for the annual Ronnie Stephen's Lake Bash.
While Scott was swimming around 1:30 p.m., the propeller from the boat hit her causing serious injuries. Scott, then 25, was hospitalized for six weeks and eventually lost her arm, her breasts and had her sternum severed.
Scott told WBTV Monday night, "All I can do is pick myself up again and try to keep moving forward. Everything is new, everything is different...If you just stay positive you know keep your eye on the prize and good things will happen to you."
The lawsuit, filed in Mecklenburg Superior Court on January 3 by law firm SeiferFlatow, claims that there was negligence on the part of the man driving the boat, Dennis Allen, who did not know how to properly operate a boat, according to the lawsuit.
Related link: Read the lawsuit (pdf document)
As Scott, who believed the boat was off, was swimming toward a ladder attached to the rear of the boat, the boat's driver, Allen, "panicked and slammed the throttle into the reverse gear" hitting Scott, the lawsuit says.
Several people were screaming at Allen, 30 at the time, to stop the boat, which he was trying to move the vessel to tie up with another vessel, the lawsuit claims.
After hitting Scott once, Allen, later charged by police with operating a boat in a reckless manner, "panicked and put the vessel into forward gear causing the propeller to strike" Scott a second time, the lawsuit said.
Matthew Flatow, one of her attorneys, told WBTV Allen, "he shouldn't have been out there in the first place. But when he was out there he had a responsibility to avoid this type of accident."
The lawsuit also says the design of the boat contributed to the incident and that the man who rented to boat to Allen, David Orzolek, failed to train Allen properly.
"Orzolek gave a brief tutorial on how to operate the vessel," the lawsuit says. "It […] only discussed the basics of handling the vessel in open, non-congested waters."
The suit demands a jury trial and names Allen, Orzolek and Chaparral Boats as defendants. The lawsuit does not request a specific dollar amount, but asks for an amount of over $10,000.
The lawsuit says that the seating arrangement on the boat makes the driver of the boat unable to properly see behind the watercraft, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit also says that the boat's design contributes to encouraging swimming behind the watercraft.
Flatow also says the lawsuit is an effort to raise awareness when it comes to the lack of boating regulations.
"Why do I have to have a year learning period to drive a car but a boat, which in many ways is just as dangerous as a car, is there barely any regulation at all," he questioned. "There's no training courses. There's not safety courses."
In the meantime, Scott says she is focusing on moving forward.
"I was spared for a reason," she believes. "I know that I'm alive for a reason. There's no way someone can go through I what I went through live to tell about it and somehow not come out of it."
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