A $1m lawsuit over the death of a Texas man, who died earlier this month after being electrocuted in a resort hot tub in Mexico, has moved forward.
Last week, Lizzette Zambrano, 35, sued two Arizona-based companies, vacation rental provider Casago International and travel company High Desert Travel, as well as the Sonoran Sea Resort, arguing they were responsible for the violent death of her husband, Jorge Guillen, 43, at a resort in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico.
Since then, the resort has received a temporary restraining order in a Texas court mandating that it preserve the tub as is for investigation.
“Preserving this evidence is important to the prosecution of Ms. Zambrano’s case, and a crucial first step in this litigation, to hopefully preventing this type of tragedy from ever happening again,” the woman’s attorney, Tej Paranjpe, told The Independent. “Whether the fault lies with the manufacturer, contractors, the resort and its employees, or some combination, we will be relentless in determining exactly what happened and why.”
On the evening of 11 June, Guillen was shocked with an “electric discharge” in the hot tub, according to the suit.
Bystanders and Zambrano attempted to retrieve him, but were deterred by current running through the water, the suit alleges.
It would be ten minutes before resort staff were able to pull Guillen out of the water, by which point he had died.
Zambrano, meanwhile, was medevaced to a hospital and in critical condition, after being shocked while trying to retrieve her husband.
“There is no reason this should have happened,” Paranjpe previously told KFOX. “Hotels and resorts have a duty to ensure guest safety. At no point did resort staff think to engage an emergency shut-off, not to mention warn guests of a faulty, dangerous amenity."
The Independent has contacted the resort, High Desert Travel, and Casago for comment.
