The parents of a 16-year-old girl killed by an emergency vehicle responding to the Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco last year have filed a lawsuit against city and county officials, saying her death was “tragic and avoidable.”
In the wrongful-death lawsuit filed Aug. 13 in San Mateo County Superior Court, Gan Ye and Xiao Yun Zheng said their daughter, Ye Mengyuan, was hurt during the crash, left in a dangerous area and then abandoned by emergency workers as she lay in a “fetal position,” only to be run over by two aircraft rescue firefighting vehicles.
The lawsuit alleges rescue workers “failed to move her to a safe location and abandoned her in a hazardous position that subjected her to grave risk of harm.”
Her parents claim San Francisco city and county were negligent because they failed to provide adequate training and set protocols to avoid such tragedies.
Matt Dorsey, spokesman for the San Francisco city attorney’s office, declined to comment, saying the office had yet to be served with the lawsuit.
Ye was one of three people killed when the Asiana Airlines flight clipped a sea wall and slammed into a runway at San Francisco International Airport.
More than 180 of the 307 passengers and crew members aboard Flight 214 were injured in the crash.
Ye, a Chinese high school student, slid down one of the Boeing 777’s ramps, according to the lawsuit.
She was on the ground when she was struck by two firefighting vehicles, according to a report released by San Francisco fire officials in January.
Coroner’s officials said Ye suffered crushing injuries and internal bleeding.
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