A Lengthy Island mother is suing Disney for $2 million, claiming she was completely scarred by a “mammoth” wave on the resort’s Storm Lagoon.
Kimberly Panetta’s annual household journey to the happiest place on Earth was a horror present after she was “pummeled” by the wave as she grabbed her 3-year-old daughter from a water slide within the kids’s space of Disney’s Magic Kingdom
The 45-year-old mother was “violently struck by a sudden and forceful wave,” in response to her Brooklyn Federal Court docket lawsuit.
“It was so highly effective it was really dragging us below the water for a number of toes,” Panetta informed The Submit of the April 2022 incident. “I simply thank God I had the sense to push her above as I used to be getting dragged. I knew if she was the one getting dragged she would have been lower throughout.”
The wave “hit her from the facet with such drive, it pummeled her and her physique skidded throughout the cement or gunite, inflicting severe ‘highway rash’ or scrapes that have been extreme and deep,” in response to court docket papers.
“I felt ache instantly and I regarded down and there was blood,” she recalled. “You assume you’re within the happiest place on Earth and the most secure place but it surely’s like being dragged on concrete — it’s very tough.”
It left her two youngsters, then ages 3 and seven, in shock, she added.
“They have been mortified they only couldn’t consider my legs and naturally, after they see blood pouring out of their mom, their eyes have been like saucers.”
Each Panetta and her lawyer husband Frank stated their younger daughter may have been significantly injured if not for Kimberly’s fast pondering.
“She would have undoubtedly been harm had my spouse not held her up and brought the brunt of the damage,” stated Frank Panetta, who famous Kimberly skidding throughout the concrete “for 15 or 20 toes.”
Earlier than the journey, Panetta was “a younger svelte lady, [who] had no scars or marks on her legs.”
However the Dix Hills lady is now “scarred and self-conscious” and “retains her legs lined and should tolerate being scorching and uncomfortable consequently,” the litigation claims.
Disney shouldn’t have let such “highly effective waves . . . infiltrate the kiddie space,” Panetta contended.
Her household’s trip was a nightmare after she was harm.
The journey “was ruined and she or he was caught limping round making use of bandages, salves and lotions and was compelled to keep away from swimming and having fun with deliberate visits to the parks,” she stated within the authorized submitting.
The bloody wounds made strolling tough and left her leg “throbbing” in the midst of the night time whereas ruining the remainder of the household’s annual Disney journey.
“We had all these plans and we needed to cancel every part. I couldn’t even go within the pool the place we have been staying, I needed to keep inside. All the pieces was utterly ruined,” the homemaker stated.
Disney supplied nothing however a measly $250 credit score, Frank Panetta stated.
It’s not the primary time Disney followers have claimed damage at Storm Lagoon — certainly one of two water parks at Disney World in Florida that includes practically a dozen totally different sights.
A Florida lady misplaced consciousness and was coughing up blood after using the Humunga Kowabunga slide on the water park in Might, she alleged in a lawsuit.
The slide sends riders plunging 214 toes at a close to vertical drop.
Laura Reyes-Merino, then 25, was discovered unconscious on the backside of the water slide by her fiancé and mother, and no lifeguards have been on responsibility, she claimed.
One other lady claimed she was harm on the identical slide in 2019, when the drive of the water created a painful wedgie and for “water to be violently compelled inside her,” in response to stories.
