Inspector Who Jumped to Safety During Baltimore Bridge Collapse to File Lawsuit
BALTIMORE — It was just another night on the job for Damon Davis, a highway construction inspector overseeing repairs to Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge — until the deck beneath him began to collapse.
He ran for his life and miraculously managed to reach safety moments before the bridge. collapsed into the water below.
“You can visualize, as he goes forward, the bridge collapses behind him,” said Baltimore attorney Billy Murphy, whose firm is representing Davis in a case liability case against the owner and manager of the Dali, the massive container ship that veered off course and crashed into one of the bridge’s support columns in March.
The lawyers held a press conference Thursday to announce their upcoming lawsuit.
Six members of the road crew whose work Davis was assigned to inspect that night died in the collapse and another narrowly survived his fall from the bridge. Their job that night was to fill potholes in the bridge deck.
A last-minute distress call from the ship’s pilot allowed police to stop traffic toward the bridge, but they did not have time to alert the workers. The workers were on a break when the disaster struck. Most of them were sitting in their construction vehicles and had not been warned of the impending collapse.
The man who survived the fall, Julio Cervantes Suarezwas able to manually roll down the window of his rapidly sinking truck and climb out into the frigid waters of the Patapsco River, where he clung to a piece of floating debris until he was rescued by first responders.
Meanwhile, Davis was walking back to his car when he realized what was happening. He ran to one end of the bridge and jumped to safety.
“His car went down with the bridge and he took a giant leap,” attorney Ron Richardson said. “He kept running for his life.”
Davis is still struggling to come to terms with the trauma he suffered, his attorneys said, as he mourns the loss of his colleagues and overcomes the shock of his own near-death experience.
Davis plans to file a lawsuit in the coming days against Grace Ocean Private Ltd., Dali’s owner, and Synergy Marine Group, the company’s manager, both of Singapore. The companies filed a lawsuit days after the collapse, seeking compensation. limit their legal liability in what could become the costliest maritime accident in history.
Since then, several other parties filed opposing claims in the case, arguing that the companies were negligent in allowing an unseaworthy vessel to leave the port of Baltimore.
THE the most damning statement So far, it was on Wednesday that the U.S. Justice Department charged Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine with recklessly taking shortcuts and ignoring known electrical problems on the Dali.
The ship suffered power outages as it approached the bridge, causing it to lose steering and veer off course. The Justice Department’s complaint provides the most detailed account yet of the cascading series of failures that left the ship’s pilots and crew helpless in the face of impending disaster.
The ship, which had been stuck in the rubble for months before it could be extracted and refloatedleft Norfolk, Virginia, Thursday afternoon en route to China for its first international trip since the March 26 disaster.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it was maintaining a 500-meter safety zone around the ship, which began its journey with three tugs. They will eventually detach and the Dali will sail under its own power. The voyage is expected to take 46 days, according to a maritime tracking website.
Davis’ attorneys said the government’s recent filing strengthens their case. They noted that the Justice Department is seeking punitive damages in addition to $100 million in cleanup costs incurred following the collapse. The disaster shut down much of the nation’s shipping traffic. Port of Baltimore For months, rescue teams worked to recover victims’ bodies and clear debris from the main shipping channel.
The six dead men were Latino immigrants Lawyers for some of their families announced earlier this week that they would file a civil lawsuit on their behalf. They are also seeking better workplace safety protections for immigrant workers who often end up in dangerous jobs.
