Woman Awarded $21.7M In Watercraft Accident That Caused Permanent Brain Damage At 15

Lawyers for a woman injured in a personal watercraft accident on the Colorado River say she has been awarded $21.7 million by a Los Angeles jury in her lawsuit against the watercrafts’ drivers and a manufacturer. In a release Wednesday, attorney Lawrence Grassini said client Fabiola Esparza was 15 when she suffered permanent brain injury while celebrating July 4th with friends near Blythe, Calif. in 2008. Grassini said the watercraft Esparza and two others were riding became impossible to control through a defect the maker, Polaris, knew about. The watercraft crashed into an oncoming boat, causing Esparza to suffer multiple broken bones and brain damage to her frontal lobe. She was in a coma for nearly a month and hospitalized for nearly eight months.