The family of Cristian Pavón-Piñeda, an 11-year-old boy who died last Tuesday amid winter storms that shook Texas and left millions in subfreezing cold without power, has filed a lawsuit against utility providers seeking $100 million.
Cristian’s mother, María Piñeda, told Telemundo Houston that the family awoke on Tuesday to find the boy in his bed, apparently unresponsive. He was confirmed dead later that afternoon by medical staff in Conroe.
The family of five had been without electricity for two days, and the temperature in their mobile home dipped as low as 10 degrees overnight Monday into Tuesday morning.
Family Sues for $100M After Boy Dies in Texas Home During Winter Storm
You know there has to be an ambulance chaser behind this lawsuit. You did not provide for the security of your kid and it is the fault of the electrical company?
The family is suing Entergy Texas, a utility company serving areas north of Houston, and the nonprofit Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) for damages. The family is accusing Entergy and ERCOT of failing to warn people of a hazard, providing inaccurate and incomplete advice and information to customers and participating in and contributing to acts that caused the incident in question, among other things, KPRC reported. Houston attorney Tony Buzbee is representing the family.
Holy Jesus! What the fuck they were watching on TV? Telenovelas in Telemundo? Even us over here in South Florida had advanced warning of the polar vortex about to drop in the US. If you fail to prepare, it ain’t the fault of anybody but you. And the lawyer representing them reads like a lawyer from the books: switching allegiances whenever appears to be convenient while running his Personal Injury Firm.
Cristian moved to the U.S. from Honduras two years ago. His grandparents and other relatives who still live in Honduras are now waiting for his body to be repatriated so he can be buried there.
I won’t even bother to speculate on what looks obvious. But it opens a lot of questions that I will not bother to address.
Anyway, I figure they are not really looking for a trial but some quick settlement with the company and everybody will be happy with some cash in their pockets to live a nice life back in Tegucigalpa.
Absolutely tragic that an 11 yer old child died. That said, if you have been without power for two days, and your mobile home is 10 degrees, contact the City, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Catholic Church, etc. and get to a shelter. If that’s not possible, everybody huddle together, under blankets, to share body heat. Note that after Cristian was found unresponsive, they were able to get to a hospital, so getting help was possible.
10 degrees is not exactly die in your sleep temps. Not unless you are 100% completely clueless and totally unprepared.
Is it cold enough to suffer from hypothermia, and potentially die? Absolutely, but this family must have ignored every warning sign of problems. I can imagine the child complaining about being cold, etc.. and the parents ignoring them and insisting he just wrap up in blankets.
There is no reasonable way for that child to have died in this situation.
Children are more susceptible to hypothermia than adults, due to lower body mass and higher relative surface area. If all else fails huddling together with the adults on the outside and children in the middle covering everyone with blankets, coats, or whatever you’ve got is a survival strategy known by all those who live in cold country. Granted being from Honduras they may have missed the lecture on cold weather survival, but the poor kid’s death WAS preventable. Pure speculation on my part, but I suspect one or more members of the family are illegal aliens, and thus the reluctance to seek help before it was too late.
Echoing NRW: If it’s that cold for that long, there are warming shelters. Red Cross, Salvation Army, local churches, whatever. Ask around.
If there’s no room at the shelter, everyone sleep in the same bed, under every blanket you have in the house. There is zero reason for a child to be alone in his bed in temps that cold.
It didn’t get that cold in our house (thank God!), but if it had all the kids would be in our bed with us, under a mountain of blankets and pillows.
There’s a time for privacy, and a time to do what it takes for survival.
Besides which, it’s not the Texas utility companies’ fault there wasn’t enough power. They were hamstrung by the Biden DoE and barred from generating extra reserve power leading up to the storm. But something tells me that won’t interest the family any more than it will interest the courts to move forward with such a lawsuit.
Id STILL like someone to explain to this knuckledragger how DOE officials can hamstring a utility that prob knows way more about generating power than gubmint and force them to shut down..
Why not pull a Desantis and say F YOU!!