Left: Holiday drone show in downtown Orlando (Felix Young). Right: Alezander Edgerton after one of the drones hit him in the chest (Adriana Edgerton).
The mother of a boy who suffered serious injuries at a Florida holiday drone show when the flying objects went awry and crashed into his chest, requiring her son to undergo emergency heart surgery, has filed a lawsuit.
Adriana Edgerton and her family were in Lake Eola in downtown Orlando on Dec. 21 to watch a holiday drone show. But something went wrong during the show and the drones became out of control, crashing to the ground. One of the drones hit Edgerton”s 7-year-old son, Alezander, in the face and chest.
“God please be with me! My baby is going into emergency heart surgery off of just trying to watch a drone show at Lake Eola Park!” she wrote on her Facebook page the day after the incident. “I am beyond words beyond terrified! City of Orlando – Government and Sky Elements Drones really have some explaining to do. They will be held accountable for what was done to my son. I pray he makes it out of this!”
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Now, Edgerton is suing the City of Orlando, Sky Elements LLC and others in connection with the incident. The show involved 500 drones that lit up in green and red colors in coordination with the holiday season and were supposed to fly into formations. But during the show, “multiple drones malfunctioned, causing these drones to leave formation, deviate from the coordinated flight path and breach the designated geofenced perimeter,” the lawsuit alleged.
One of the drones crashed into a group of spectators and hit Alezander. The boy “sustained traumatic, permanent injuries requiring medical treatment, and will continue to suffer physical, emotional, and financial harm,” the lawsuit stated.
The plaintiffs are accusing the defendants of negligence.
“Defendant, City of Orlando, knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known that the Subject Drone Show involved high-risk aerial equipment and that the Subject Drones posed a foreseeable and unreasonable risk of harm to the public, including spectators such as [Alezander].”
Edgerton’s suit claims Orlando failed to properly vet the companies in charge of the show, nor did the city make sure they followed all safety protocols. It also did not ensure the vendors had “an established track record of safety and reliability, particularly in light of known prior drone failures at past shows involving the same vendors and technology,” plaintiff lawyers wrote.
As for Sky Elements, the company “owed a duty” to confirm the drones were safe prior to the event and had the proper staffing to ensure a safe show, the lawsuit said. But the company allegedly failed to monitor any “anomalies” and stop the show once problems began and did not “train, supervise and manage the solo pilot in charge of the entire 500-drone” show.
Alezander spent roughly 10 days in the hospital and continues to recover from his injuries.
In a statement, Sky Elements said it could not comment because of the pending litigation. The City of Orlando did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
