Man Wins $21 Million for Seattle Cruise Ship Incident
by Alex Rozier, KING 5 News
A Seattle jury awarded a Springfield, Illinois, man $21.5 million in lawsuit settlement after the man suffered a mild traumatic brain injury when he was hit by an automatic sliding door on board a Holland America Line cruise.
James Hausman is a successful businessman who was on an eight-month cruise around the world with his wife and daughter. On November 26, 2011, in the South Pacific around the equator, Hausman walked out to the pool when an automatic sliding door opened and he was struck in the side of the head.
Doctors diagnosed him with a mild traumatic brain injury and post concussive syndrome. Hausman’s wife Carol said he now has problems with dizziness and fatigue.
“This was a man who used to sleep less than I did and now this is a man who sleeps much more than I ever hope to sleep,” Carol said. “He doesn’t like to be in public, he doesn’t like to be in places with too much stimulation, too much bright lights. He just can’t tolerate that stuff in the way that he used to be able to.”
According to Hausman’s attorneys, Rick Friedman and David Roosa, Hausman’s incident was one of more than a dozen involving automatic sliding doors on Holland America cruises where medical care was needed in the three years leading up to the incident. Attorney David Roosa said all they wanted was for Holland America to take accountability and responsibility for the incident that happened on their watch.
We were on a Royal Caribbean cruise and had a jumper the last night !! It was a nightmare… We were held in our rooms for over 4 hours…. I couldn’t look out the balcony seeing all the boats and lights searching for the man…he was a jumper because some young girls were on the top and he said I can’t stand this anymore & jumped !!! Thank god he didn’t take one of the teens with him !!!!! My daughter and family were on there first cruise and they will never go again!!!!! Not sure about me & my husband but it will be awhile for us.
It leaves you with a very Erie feeling for quite some time …..