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Just like motorcycles on land, jet skis are the coolest ride on the water; however, with that level of thrill comes serious responsibility.

From improper training from rental companies to inexperienced riders, jet skis and other watercrafts are responsible for over 1,000 deaths in the United States from 2020 to 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Report, which was released on May 16, 2024. A little over 17% of these deaths occurred in July.

A couple in Arizona made national headlines this week after a wife tragically discovered her husband floating in a lake after he fell from a rented jet ski on Sunday at Lake Pleasant. The couple had rented the jet ski at Scorpion Bay, according to reporting from The Miami Herald, and experienced a “mechanical issue.” When they attempted to make a U-turn, they fell into the water.

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Firefighters with the Key West Fire Department took part in recent training to learn how to dismantle cars in an emergency.

The week-long training was a part of a larger Urban Search and Rescue operation, and all the cars used in the exercise were already marked for destruction, according to reporting from the Key West Citizen.

This specialized training is essential in a state that sees approximately 400,000 annual car accidents on average. Monroe County had nearly 2,000 crashes in 2024, according to data collected by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ Crash Dashboard. Of these crashes, six people were killed and 1,252 others were injured. In 2023, there were 1,401 crashes with 18 fatalities and 925 injuries.

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Leesfield & Partners has filed a case on behalf of a woman who attempted to lie down on an improperly installed and inadequately maintained hammock at a Key West resort. The hammock flipped her and sent her head-first to the ground, resulting in a severe spinal cord injury.

Not only was the hammock improperly installed and negligently maintained—a defect that has left the resort’s guests vulnerable to injuries of this sort—but the resort failed to remedy the defect or warn people about the risks associated with the use of the hammock.

As a result of this horrific and preventable incident, our client was severely injured and required invasive surgery. A year later she continues to suffer daily pain due to this incident.

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Leesfield & Partners is representing a Key West motor scooter rider whose life was upended after a negligent driver struck him, leaving him with a traumatic brain injury

Our 46-year-old client was approaching a Key West intersection on his motor scooter when a driver, who had a stop sign, failed to yield the right of way to our client, causing a collision between the vehicle and the scooter. Our client was ejected from his scooter and hit the driver’s windshield, significantly cracking it before falling unconscious to the ground. He was transported to the hospital with a crushed left tibia and fibula and severe head trauma.

When speaking with the authorities at the scene, the driver claimed to not have seen our client.

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A 35-year-old man faces a slew of charges after allegedly threatening individuals at a Tom Thumb store on Stock Island Wednesday.

The man, of Marathon, Florida, was charged with theft, robbery with a weapon, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, which posted an online press release Thursday.

Around 2:05 a.m., the man opened a soda and “partially drank it” and tried to hide it with chips before a store employee and at least three customers tried to stop him, police said. When they approached him, the man allegedly pulled out a knife “swung it around and chased one witness.”

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A 73-year-old snorkeler has died after he was found passed out off Key Largo this week, according to local media.

The man, Dwaine David Anderson, of Crystal Falls, Michigan, was swimming on the Grecian Rocks reef off Key Largo Monday. Anderson was out with a commercial dive operation when he was found passed out, officials with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office told the Miami Herald.

The dive boat crew performed CPR as they raced back to shore. Anderson was transported to the Mariners Hospital in Tavernier where he was pronounced dead.

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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is conducting the search for a child who remains missing as of Tuesday after a boating accident in North Florida that killed three people, officials say.

The incident happened 8 p.m. Friday when an 18-foot vessel carrying eight people flipped. Three bodies, including one child, were recovered from the water. Emergency responders were called out to the scene after passersby reported seeing the overturned vessel with at least “four people on top … and an additional four people possibly underneath,” according to reporting from The Miami Herald.

No one involved in the incident was wearing a life jacket, officials with the U.S. Coast Guard told reporters.

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Card Sound Road, one of the only ways in and out of the Florida Keys, will have intermittent closures Thursday morning due to fast-moving brush fires, according to reporting from The Miami Herald.

Thursday marks the third day in which the road saw shut downs due to the wildfires as firefighters continue to battle the flames. The road will have these closures for fire mitigation and air water drops.

The 14,000-acre, South Florida wildfire broke out Tuesday afternoon in a largely rural area and, as of Thursday morning, was at least 20 percent contained, according to reporting from The Palm Beach Post.

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Two 16-year-olds who went missing Monday afternoon from the Cedar Key Fishing Pier north of Tampa were found on an oyster reef Tuesday morning.

The girls were found 14 miles from the pier where they launched their board. Officials say it was a combination of strong winds and waves that pushed the two out to sea. The two were reported missing by family and multiple agencies, who were out searching for them into the night. Several volunteer boaters were also out on the water looking for the girls.

Lt. Scott Tummond with the Levy County Sheriff’s Office told reporter with ABC news that the number of first responders they had out searching was “astounding.”

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The Monroe County State Attorney’s Office is seeking the death penalty for a Florida Keys man police accused of filming himself raping a child multiple times, according to reporting from the Miami Herald.

Micheal John Demerjian, 36, of Big Pine Key, in the Lower Keys, was in custody on unrelated charges on Jan. 17 when his phone was found by someone who purchased his car. On the phone, over 70 images and videos of the child, who is under 12 years old, were found. The images were reported to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

The Key West Injury Lawyer Blog will not be publishing the age of the child or Demerjian’s connection to the minor to protect their identity.

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