{"id":6215,"date":"2025-10-16T07:50:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T07:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/6215\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T07:50:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T07:50:37","slug":"woman-sues-universal-orlando-resort-over-roller-coaster-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/6215\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman sues Universal Orlando Resort over roller coaster injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 A woman has sued Universal Orlando Resort, claiming she was injured on a roller coaster at its newest theme park. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, comes a week after a man died<\/a> from blunt impact injuries after going on the same ride.<\/p>\n

Sandi Streets filed the negligence lawsuit in state court in Orlando, days after the death of 32-year-old Kevin Rodriguez Zavala in a separate incident.<\/p>\n

Streets said she was invited to Universal\u2019s Epic Universe theme park just a few weeks before it officially opened to the public in May and went on the dual-launch coaster, which reaches speeds up to 62 mph (100 kph). On the ride, her head shook violently and slammed into her seat\u2019s headrest, giving her permanent injuries, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit says Streets has suffered disability, medical care expenses, loss of the ability to work and an exacerbation of a preexisting condition since going on the ride. Her attorney, Nicholas Spetsas, didn\u2019t immediately respond Thursday to an email seeking further details on her injuries.<\/p>\n

The ride failed to properly restrain her head, and the theme park failed to adequately warn her of \u201cthe unsafe and unreasonably dangerous condition\u201d of the roller coaster, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

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\"Guests<\/p>\n

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\"Guests<\/p>\n

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Universal didn\u2019t respond Thursday to an email seeking comment about the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

In Zavala\u2019s case, the medical examiner for the Orlando area ruled the cause of death as multiple blunt impact injuries and said the manner of death was an accident. <\/p>\n

Karen Irwin, Universal Orlando Resort\u2019s president, said in a note to workers last weekend, after Zavala\u2019s death, that internal findings showed ride systems functioned normally, equipment was intact and Universal workers followed the proper procedures. Investigators with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said last Friday that their initial findings align<\/a> with that of the theme park.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Zavala\u2019s family took issue with that conclusion at a news conference Wednesday. Zavala had a spinal disability from birth and used a wheelchair, but they said his disability didn\u2019t cause his death. His family hasn\u2019t filed a lawsuit, as of yet, and said they want to understand how he died.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 A woman has sued Universal Orlando Resort, claiming she was injured on a roller…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6829,558,104,1882,28,477,571,2795,6830,6831,4137,1105,555,4138,6832,139,141,140,6828,1110],"class_list":["post-6215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-amusement-parks","tag-business","tag-entertainment","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-injuries","tag-karen-irwin","tag-kevin-rodriguez-zavala","tag-lawsuits","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-lifestyle","tag-mike-schneider","tag-nicholas-spetsas","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-resort","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}