The ferry dock gangway that collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island last year, killing seven people, was “poorly constructed and destined to fail,” the victims’ families said in a new lawsuit.
Attorneys representing the families of more than three dozen people killed or injured in what officials called a “catastrophic failure” filed the lawsuit against several design, engineering and construction firms.
“This tragedy was totally preventable,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said at an Atlanta news conference Wednesday. “These seven people did not have to die.”
Among the survivors was Regina Brinson, who said she heard a loud crack before plunging into the chilly river along with several of her loved ones. Her uncle, 79-year-old Isaiah Thomas, did not survive.
Credit: Shaddi Abusaid/ shaddi.abusaid@ajc.com
Credit: Shaddi Abusaid/ shaddi.abusaid@ajc.com
“The pain doesn’t get any easier,” Brinson said through tears, recalling how tightly her uncle clung to her as they struggled to stay above water.
The collapse happened Oct. 19 during the annual Cultural Day celebration on the island. There were an estimated 40 people on the metal gangway when it buckled, sending about 20 plummeting into the river below, authorities said.
Those killed included Atlantans William Johnson Jr., 73, and Queen Welch, 76. Charles L. Houston, 77, of Darien, was also among the dead, as well as Jacqueline Crews Carter, 75; Cynthia Gibbs, 74; Carlotta McIntosh, 93; and Thomas, all from Jacksonville, Florida.
Brinson said she and her uncle were assisting McIntosh, who used a walker, back to the ferry when they fell in.
“Before I knew it, Ms. Carlotta shot down into the river,” she said. “I could see her whole body and her walker go underwater.”
Brinson told reporters it still feels like a bad dream.
“The victims fought for their lives, clinging to flotation devices thrown from the nearby ferry, grasping for the outstretched hands of rescuers and pleading for help,” the families said in Wednesday’s lawsuit in Gwinnett County court. “Many of those who were sent plummeting into the water were elderly, limited in mobility and unable to save themselves.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez/AJC
The celebration was to honor the Sapelo Island’s Gullah Geechee community, comprised of the descendants of enslaved people who inhabited the island generations ago.
“It was supposed to be a celebration of Black pride,” Crump said, but it became a “great Black loss of humanity and life.”
The only way to get to and from the island that day was via a ferry operated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, according to the lawsuit. Guests were picked up at the Meridian Landing Dock in Darien and brought to the Marsh Landing Dock on Sapelo.
Credit: Justin Taylor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Justin Taylor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 80-foot gangway collapsed about 4:30 p.m. as revelers were headed back to the mainland.
“Given the horrendously inadequate design and construction of the subject gangway, it was only a matter of time before tragedy struck and this gangway failed,” the families said in their lawsuit.
The suit names several companies they say were involved in the gangway’s engineering and construction, including Stevens & Wilkinson Inc.; Centennial Contractors Enterprises Inc.; EMC Engineering Services Inc.; and Crescent Equipment Co., which manufactures gangways.
Attorney Jeffrey Goodman said the gangway should have been designed to hold 100 pounds per square foot. Instead, tests showed the structure was built to withstand less than a third of that, he said.
“This tragedy was not just preventable, it was inevitable,” said Goodman, whose firm has investigated other high-profile building and bridge collapses.
He said the Sapelo Island collapse raises questions about the structural integrity of other gangways and structures built across Georgia and beyond.
Savannah-based attorney Chadrick Mance represents another nine people who were standing on the gangway when it collapsed. All of them survived, but suffered “devastating physical, psychological and emotional injuries” as a result of the ordeal, he said.
As attorneys gathered in Atlanta, Mance staged a separate news conference at a church in McIntosh County, not far from the ferry terminal on the mainland. The Elm Grove Church was used as a staging area last October for the families of the injured.
Mance said the failed gangway was installed in 2021, only after Sapelo’s Gullah Geechee residents filed a lawsuit claiming the dock and ferry didn’t meet accessibility standards. It failed, he said, while visitors were there celebrating the Gullah Geechee heritage.
“The sad irony is the people of Sapelo had to sue to get this gangway, and even then the gangway wasn’t done right,” he said.
Two of the companies named in the complaint responded to requests for comment Wednesday.
“The underlying facts remain the subject of ongoing investigation,” Centennial Contractors said in an email, adding it does not comment on pending legal proceedings. “Our deepest sympathies are with those who lost loved ones or were injured.”
Architecture firm SSOE Group, which acquired Stevens & Wilkinson in 2021, said it was also aware of the lawsuit.
“This was a tragic event and our thoughts remain with those affected,” a spokesperson said in an email. “As this matter is now the subject of litigation, we are unable to comment further at this time and we continue to cooperate with the investigation.”
Two years before the Sapelo Island gangway collapse, several state employees expressed concern about the structure, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found.
A similar gangway in nearby St. Marys had collapsed in September 2022, injuring more than a dozen people. Both structures were built by the same contractor, Crescent Equipment Co.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
The company is based in Crescent, which is 5 miles from the Sapelo Island Visitors Center. Crescent has built some two dozen structures across the state for the Department of Natural Resources since 2015, records show.
Reached by phone Wednesday, the company declined to comment on the latest lawsuit.
The DNR said last year that is inspecting the roughly a dozen Crescent gangways under DNR’s jurisdiction throughout the state. The agency also said it was in the process of having Georgia’s gangways inspected, and that it had placed new signs at gangway entrances in an effort to limit the number of people on the structures at any given time.
The AJC has reached out to DNR officials for an update on those inspections.
Crump called the collapse “heart-wrenchingly painful” and vowed to seek justice for those who were injured or killed.
— AJC reporter Adam Van Brimmer contributed to this article.
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