A complaint filed in Kansas Federal Court on March 29th alleges a Sandals boat ran over its own guest while snorkeling. Janet Jilka was a guest at Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort & Spa in July 2009. The complaint reveals that while snorkeling from the private resort’s beach, a boat owned and controlled by Sandals ran over Ms. Jilka and struck her with the propeller. Per the complaint, this incident caused Ms. Jilka to be permanently disfigured.
This but one of multiple incident within recent years concerning the negligent operation of a Sandals’ boat and snorkelers or scuba divers staying at its resorts. In August 2007, Sandal’s abandoned a British couple vacationing at the Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa in the water for 5 hours during a scuba diving trip. In that incident, the Sandals dive boat took the remaining guests to other scuba diving areas and even made it all the way back to the dock before the Sandals employee learned he left 2 guests in the water.
The frequency of these incidents make one wonder what, if any, screening Sandals’ performs on their boat operators before putting guests lives in their hands?
