MIAMI – A Fort Lauderdale mother shares only with CBS News Miami how a rocky roller coaster ride changed her daily life.
Geriann Clem and her spouse filed a lawsuit very last month in Orange County from Common Metropolis Advancement Associates, Ltd., which does business as Common Orlando Vacation resort, alleging she suffered a “traumatic mind harm” soon after using a roller coaster at the Common Studios Florida topic park.
“I keep in mind it commenced out going up an incline, and then it just felt like I was out of manage,” explained Clem.
Sitting across her dining place table from CBS News Miami reporter Joe Gorchow, the 66-year-aged Clem recalled what she described as a tough experience on the Hollywood Rip, Experience, Rockit coaster.
“There was I was, acquiring thrown aspect to side actually tricky, violently, and I just don’t forget, I just want this to be more than,” mentioned Clem.
On February 11th, 2023, Clem took a brief trip to the concept park with her daughters who had been 19 a long time outdated. Their to start with journey was Hollywood Rip Experience Rockit. As soon as off the coaster, her daughters called Richard Clem, who was property in Fort Lauderdale.
“We just got off the journey and she does not know our names,” recalled Richard Clem, Geriann’s partner and the girls’ dad. “She cannot study the indications. She’s, like, not her herself. I explained, you should try out to get her some assistance.”
The family members reported they did seek out immediate health-related focus for Clem from a Common personnel onsite. Universal also self-reported the damage to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Shopper Expert services as a “headache.”
Gorchow asked Clem, “What do you imagine when you see by yourself in that photo there,” referring to a photo she explained her daughter took of them immediately after she acquired off the experience.
“You will find a lady in issues,” replied Clem.
Clem explained her daughter snapped the photo soon just after the trip. The family members still left and went back to the lodge, with her husband listening on the cell phone.
“Then, all of a sudden, she ran to the lavatory, and I could listen to her throwing up at the hotel,” reported Richard Clem.
“I will not remember a good deal of it, but the upcoming detail I know, I was getting place in an ambulance,” claimed Geriann Clem.
Clem showed Gorchow her healthcare chart notes from a month right after the original personal injury, on March 15th of past 12 months, when she went to a healthcare facility closer to household in Fort Lauderdale, detailing what medical professionals discovered as the head injuries and the development of bleeding in the brain.
Clem’s attorney offered her mind scan outcomes taken months immediately after the first injury report to Universal: “In summary, the over conclusions are abnormal and compatible with the history of traumatic mind injuries with objective quantitative evidence of everlasting traumatic mind damage…”
“Clem’s imaging mirrored the textbook graphic of what a brain damage appears to be like,” reported Justin Bailey, Clem’s attorney. “This displays proof of traumatic brain damage.”
In the lawsuit, it alleges, “Defendant negligently failed to warn Plaintiff, GERIANN IRWIN CLEM, her head would be shaken and slammed in opposition to the headrest of her seat while riding the Hollywood Rip Trip Rockit Roller Coaster.”
Read through Geriann Clem’s Complaint
A Universal Orlando Vacation resort spokesperson explained to CBS Information Miami, “The firm does not remark on pending litigation.”
They also have not responded to the criticism in courtroom filings when CBS News Miami checked on March 25th.
Universal Orlando’s Rider Safety and Accessibility on-line booklet describes Rip Ride Rockit as a “high-pace roller coaster journey that contains sudden and dramatic acceleration, climbing, tilting, and dropping.”
“How has your lifetime changed since going on that ride?” Gorchow questioned Clem.
“Well, I, the initially 50 percent of the 12 months right after it occurred, I was variety, I was owning visual seizures, they identified as it, which was double vision. From time to time, seeking at something, section of it would be lacking. Other moments, some hues would form of appear up. So it manufactured it difficult to, for me to do my graphic structure perform,” she stated.
“Are you worried you can in no way be back again to your whole self?” asked Gorchow.
“I am because following all this time, it is really been above a year, and I am still getting hassle with memory problems,” she stated.
“She has not been herself,” extra Richard Clem. “And in the way that I’ve known her for, we’ve been married for 28 yrs.”
The concept park advises folks on-line to “examine all health and fitness and basic safety needs for just about every attraction, as they are not all the exact same. If you suspect your well being could be at threat for any reason or that you could worsen a pre-present issue of any kind, do not ride.”
That’s what is at the coronary heart of this lawsuit. The family members alleges the warning indication near the coaster was “insufficient,” failing to alert about likely “unreasonably perilous situations.”
Go through the lawsuit:
