last year<\/a> because it painted the city\u2019s lifeguard division as hypocritical for continually blaming reckless personal-watercraft activity on illegal rental companies not providing users safety instructions.<\/p>\nThe lawsuit filed by Ali Polidori and her family, which sought $3 million in damages, says lifeguards themselves are a key part of the problem, based on the behavior of one guard in December 2023 at La Jolla Cove.<\/p>\n
The suit says the lifeguard ripped open Polidori\u2019s head while going more than 20 mph on a watercraft in La Jolla Cove\u2019s swimming area, where all vessels are banned except those driven by lifeguards.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit says the lifeguard, who was responding to an emergency call of another swimmer in distress, was traveling unreasonably and dangerously fast and wasn\u2019t exercising due caution.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for City Attorney Heather Ferbert declined Monday to comment on the settlement, which the City Council is scheduled to approve Tuesday in open session. It was approved in closed session in September.<\/p>\n
While Lifeguard Chief James Gartland has focused on illegal rentals as the key to problems with personal watercraft, he has never said they are the only problem related to the devices.<\/p>\n
Gartland has stressed that crashes are more common when people rent from illegal operators, which typically focus less on explaining safety protocols and how to avoid hazards in the bay.<\/p>\n
Lifeguards receive extensive training on how to operate the devices, city officials say.<\/p>\n
The Polidori lawsuit is at least the second the city is facing over such watercraft.<\/p>\n
The family of a 12-year-old paddleboarder killed in July 2023 on Mission Bay, Savannah Peterson, has sued the city for damages, contending officials knew of the dangers and didn\u2019t do enough to keep people safe.<\/p>\n
Peterson was killed by 18-year-old Arsanyous Refat Ghaly, who pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and was sentenced last fall to 230 days in custody and two years of probation.<\/p>\n
No trial date has been scheduled in the Peterson civil case.<\/p>\n
Polidori, 20, survived her December 2023 crash but suffered a 5-inch laceration on the back of her head that required seven staples and put her in intensive care for multiple nights. Her lawsuit says she has suffered a loss of confidence and deteriorating mental health.<\/p>\n
A former triathlete and diver who graduated from Torrey Pines High School, Polidori was \u201ca shell of her former student-athlete self\u201d when she returned to the U.S. Naval Academy after the crash, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n
She is slated to graduate from the academy in June.<\/p>\n
A key question raised by the lawsuit is whether the lifeguard was justified in driving so quickly through a swimming area where swimmers don\u2019t expect there to be fast-moving devices of any kind.<\/p>\n
The police report appears inconsistent on this issue.<\/p>\n
It says traveling at 20 to 25 mph \u201cdoes not appear to represent reckless or negligent operation,\u201d adding that \u201cthe speed was within the act of operating within due regard for the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the report also says the lifeguard appears to have violated international navigation rules, particularly by operating the 800-pound device at a speed too fast to be able to avoid collision and by failing to use a proper lookout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego is paying out $750,000 to a Naval Academy student from Rancho Santa Fe for injuries she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[13,74,76,75,77],"class_list":{"0":"post-64400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-politics","9":"tag-san-diego","10":"tag-san-diego-headlines","11":"tag-san-diego-news","12":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}