Family of Girl Run Over After Plane Crash Sues

It accuses SF firefighters of recklessness
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 10, 2014 12:33 AM CST
Family of Girl Run Over After Plane Crash Sue
Ye Meng Yuan poses for photos in a classroom in Jiangshan city in China's Zhejiang province.    (Uncredited)

The parents of a teenage girl run over and killed by two emergency vehicles after an Asiana Airlines crash have filed a claim against the city of San Francisco, saying rescuers were reckless and poorly trained. Attorneys for the parents of 16-year-old Ye Meng Yuan say firefighters who first saw the girl after the July 6 crash should have examined her and moved her somewhere safe. Firefighters told investigators they assumed the girl was dead and hurried on toward the damaged aircraft. An autopsy revealed Yuan was alive before the vehicles hit her.

It is still unknown how Yuan got out of the plane, but the claim says she was possibly taken out by rescuers. Interviews for an ongoing NTSB probe found Yuan was covered with foam and struck twice—once by a fire rig spraying foam whose driver had seen and driven around her earlier in the chaos, and again 11 minutes later by a second truck that was turning around to fetch water. Her death has prompted new training for firefighters who work at San Francisco International Airport. (More Asiana Airlines stories.)

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