Aug. 14--The family of a 16-year-old girl struck and killed by San Francisco Fire Department rigs after last year's Asiana Airlines crash filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Wednesday against the city, saying rescue crews violated her constitutional rights by leaving her unconscious and in harm's way near the burning jetliner before she was run over.
The lawsuit filed in San Mateo County Superior Court claims that city rescue workers saw Ye Meng Yuan "lying helpless on the ground" after the crash July 6, 2013, "but, inexplicably, failed to evaluate her condition, treat her, mark her location, or remove her from the perilous location where she lay curled in the 'fetal position.' "
Rescue workers did not notify commanders of her location, take her pulse, check her breathing or take other measures that prudent first responders would have taken, says the suit filed by attorneys on behalf of the parents, Gan Ye and Xiao Yun Zheng of China.
As a result, the suit claims, the city put Ye at risk of "grave harm" and violated her constitutional rights to life and due process under the law.
In addition to the city, the suit names as defendants Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, top officials at San Francisco International Airport, and several firefighters and police officers. It seeks unspecified damages.
"We haven't seen the lawsuit, and it would be premature to comment," Matt Dorsey, a spokesman for the city attorney's office, said Wednesday.
Two other Chinese citizens died when the Asiana Boeing 777 came up short of the runway, struck a seawall and burst into flames.
Obscured by foam
Ye wound up on the ground near the plane's left wing, where she was soon sprayed by flame-retardant foam and run over by two Fire Department rigs -- one of which had earlier been directed around her when she was still visible.
The San Mateo County coroner's office concluded after an autopsy that Ye died when her head was struck by one of the fire rigs. Footage from a fire commander's helmet camera indicated it was the second rig.
The Fire Department, while calling Ye's death a tragic accident and apologizing for the rigs running over her, has questioned the coroner's conclusion. The city has cited findings by the National Transportation Safety Board that Ye was not wearing her seat belt when the plane crashed, and had injuries consistent with being thrown from the craft, to assert that the teenager was dead before the first rig struck her.
Ye's parents have never commented publicly. Upon hearing of their daughter's death, her mother leaned on a bedpost for support while her father sat numbly and silently, the Beijing Morning Post reported shortly after the crash.
The couple flew to the United States to claim Ye's body, then returned to Zhejiang province.
Ye and a friend, Wang Lin Jia, also 16, had flown from China to visit Stanford and Google, and to spend three weeks learning American quirks and English slang at a Christian day camp in the San Fernando Valley.
Both girls were sitting near the back of the plane on Asiana Flight 214. Wang died after the tail snapped off and she apparently fell onto the tarmac. The third girl killed, Liu Yi Peng, 15, was found in her seat on the airplane and died six days after the crash.
The family's lawsuit says Ye, "either on her own or with assistance, exited the aircraft down one of the two slide ramps" that were deployed after the plane came to a rest. The slides were on the plane's left side, near where the girl was later found.
Among the named defendants are firefighters Lt. Christine Emmons and Roger Phillips, both of whom have said they saw Ye on the ground and assumed she was dead without examining her.
The suit claims rescue workers knew that Ye "lay non-ambulatory and unable to protect herself" near the burning plane, but "in deliberate indifference to known and obvious dangers," failed to do anything to help her.
State, federal cases
The family sued under both state and federal law. The city can ask that the case proceed in federal court.
Under state law, agencies typically are legally immune from liability if their crews cause a death while fighting a fire. Police officers and other first responders have less immunity than firefighters, said Anthony Tarricone, an attorney for Ye's family.
No such immunity exists under federal law.
"The city rescue workers' failure to examine, triage, treat or remove this young girl from harm's way supports a federal claim violation of her civil rights," Tarricone said. "The rescue workers abandoned her."
Besides, he said, the state immunity for responding firefighters may not protect the city in this case.
"Our view is that the negligence occurred in the rescue and not the firefighting -- in their abandoning her," Tarricone said. "The harm was done before she was run over."
Jaxon Van Derbeken is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright 2014 - San Francisco Chronicle
