Saturday, April 21, 2012

Who May Be at Fault for All Good Music Festival Accident Which Resulted in Death and Catastrophic Injury of Concertgoers?

Did you wonder why All Good Music Festival was moved from West Virginia to Ohio? Well, this may have been part of the reason...
(July 2011, Beasley Reitt Law Group)
The All Good Music Festival was winding down on Sunday July 17th when tragedy struck. Nicole Paris Miller, 20, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., and two friends Elizabeth Rose Doran, 20, and Yen Tom, 21, were sleeping peacefully in their tent when a pickup truck came sliding down a hillside, striking cars, and tents, and finally the three women. Emergency crews worked quickly to free the trapped women from beneath the truck as onlookers watched in horror. Miller was pronounced dead at the scene, and the other two women were taken to a local hospital by helicopter in serious condition.
The All Good Music Festival is a four-day festival where people camp out at and see dozens of bands play live. The festival is held annually at Marvin's Mountaintops campground in Masontown West Virginia. The music festival site includes an RV site, a campsite for tents, parking area, and separate area for the music stages.
According to general festival information posted on the "All Good" website, certain sections of the campground are rugged and hilly, so there would be designated areas for vehicles, and separate areas for people camping in tents to set up. The website states, "There are hills and cars cannot safely park with tents in a crowd." However, several festival attendees reported that staff directed cars to park on steep slopes near the tent campsites. One witness was told to "gun it" up the steep hill by staff to park, but she opted to park in a different area, feeling that the way vehicles were parked seemed dangerous.
The driver of the pickup truck that struck Miller, Doran, and Tom had apparently been navigating around cars and tents on one such hill when the he lost control and slid down the slope running over the tent and all three women below. Police are currently putting together an accident reconstruction team to investigate the accident, although it seems pretty evident to this writer that cars should not have been parked on the hill only feet from campers. Drugs and alcohol have already been ruled out as factors contributing to the accident.
On Friday July 15th a similar accident occurred when a man driving a GMC truck also lost control and slid down the same hill a few hundred feet from where Nicole Miller was killed. Luckily no one was injured during Friday's incident. Several concert attendees have also reported that vehicles had accidentally slipped down the hillside during last year's All Good Music Festival and questioned the safety of parking vertically on a hillside so close to tents and campers.
The organizers of the All Good Music Festival could possibly be held responsible for the tragic death of Miller, and the serious injuries suffered by Doran and Tom if the investigation reveals any negligence on their part. Because there were at least three instances and prior notice of cars sliding down the hillside at the festival, our experienced catstrophic injury and wrongful death lawyers believe the organizers and staff had a duty to warn festival-goers of the potential of this type of accident occurring, and to keep guests reasonably safe from injury. This devastating accident could have easily been prevented if the festival organizers and staff followed their own rules and kept vehicles parked away from tents and campsites.
http://www.pennsylvaniaproductliabilitylawyerblog.com/2011/07/who-may-be-at-fault-for-all-go.html

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