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Texas woman jumped in hot tub to try to rescue husband who died by electrocution at Mexico resort, lawsuit says
An American tourist was killed and after being electrocuted in a hot tub in a Mexican beach town earlier this week, an incident that prompted the family to sue the resort for wrongful death and negligence, their lawyers said. The man’s wife tried to rescue her drowning husband after he was zapped by the current but she was electrocuted herself and hospitalized with serious injuries, according to the lawsuit.
The injured woman, 35-year-old Lizette Zambrano, filed the lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages from the U.S.-based resort operators from her hometown of El Paso, Texas, on Friday, days after being medevaced from the hot tub at the resort town of Puerto Peñasco, an hour south of the border.
The Arizona-based defendants, vacation rental provider Casago International and travel company High Desert Travel, did not respond to a request for comment on the suit, which holds them responsible for faulty electric wiring in the hot tub that caused the couple’s electrocution and 43-year-old Jorge Guillen’s death.
GoFundMe
On top of failing to prevent and warn guests about the hazards of the hot tub, the resort managers also failed to react quickly enough to the emergency, the claim said.
The tragedy unfolded when Zambrano, her husband Guillen and several other family members arrived at the Sonoran Sea Resort, a complex of high-rise condos, on Tuesday for their vacation, the lawsuit said. Zambrano and Guillen headed to the hot tub to watch the sun set over the sea.
They didn’t know an electric current was rippling through the hot tub water.
“It’s absolutely terrifying,” Tej Paranjpe, attorney at the Houston-based firm PMR law, told The Associated Press.
The moment that Guillen dipped his foot inside the hot tub, the current zapped him. He tumbled into a direct electric circuit and quickly became trapped underwater.
Zambrano jumped in to rescue her drowning husband, then was jolted by the current and sucked in, too, according to the lawsuit. Cellphone footage from the incident shows the beachfront pool deck descending into chaos as shrieking guests raced over, tried to help the couple, then discovered the danger of the hot tub water. The video appears to show someone trying to perform chest compressions on a person lying on the ground.
While a guest managed to drag Zambrano out of the water, efforts to retrieve Guillen with poles and various metal tools only unleashed electric shocks on more and more people, the lawsuit said.
“There was not a single staff member that did anything while Jorge was getting continuously shocked again and again underwater,” Paranjpe said.
Ten minutes passed, Zambrano’s lawyers said, until workers at the resort responded to vacationers’ cries for help. The manager eventually succeeded in retrieving Guillen from the bottom of the hot tub, but it was too late.
Zambrano was flown by helicopter to Phoenix, Arizona, and was discharged from the hospital on Friday.
Mexican prosecutors in Sonora state reported that investigators were looking into “the origin of the electrical failure” and would conduct field visits in the coming days.
“A heart of gold”
Jim Ringquist, sales director for Sonoran Resorts Inc., said in a statement last week, “We are all terribly devastated by the tragedy that occurred at the Sonoran Sea Resort recently.”
He also said the company’s CEO, Fernando Anaya, died unexpectedly Wednesday of a heart attack, “adding another unfortunate tragedy to the already sad situation.”
A GoFundMe launched for the couple had raised over $55,000 as of June 19.
“Jorge had a heart of gold and was always there for family and friends,” the GoFundMe says. “The love they shared was one for ages.”
Hot tub electrocution due to faulty underwater lighting and flawed pumps remains rare, but experts warn that vigilance is needed to ensure equipment is properly maintained.
Between 2002 and 2018, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission reported 47 incidents involving injury or death in hot tubs, pools and spas in the country.
Last June, a man died after an apparent electrocution while repairing a hot tub inside a fitness center in Phoenix.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
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China school knife attack kills at least 8, wounds 17, days after fatal car attack killed dozens
Eight people were killed and 17 others wounded Saturday in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China, and the suspect — a former student — has been arrested, police said.
The attack took place in the evening at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in the city of Yixing in Jiangsu province, police in Yixing said in a statement, confirming the toll.
This was the second incident of fatal violence in China in a matter of days.
Earlier this week, a 62-year-old man killed 35 people and wounded more than 40 more when he rammed his small SUV into a crowd in the southern city of Zhuhai. The suspect was discovered in the car with a knife, with wounds to his neck thought to be self-harm injuries, according to the police.
Police said the suspect in the knife attack was a 21-year-old former student at the school who was meant to graduate this year, but failed his exams.
“He returned to the school to express his anger and commit these murders,” police said, adding that the suspect had confessed.
In Yixing, police said emergency services were fully mobilized to treat the wounded, and provide follow-up care for those affected by the attack.
Violent knife crime is not uncommon in China, where firearms are strictly controlled, but attacks with such a high death toll are relatively rare.
In recent months, there has been a spate of other attacks.
In October in Shanghai, a man killed three people and wounded 15 others in a knife attack at a supermarket.
And the month before, a Japanese schoolboy was fatally stabbed in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.
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