A Riviera Beach man is suing the city after he says contaminated city water made him sick for months. That man’s attorneys say there will soon be more lawsuits just like this one because more people who say they got sick from drinking the city’s water are coming forward.
Osborne & Francis Law Firm in West Palm Beach filed this lawsuit last week. The attorneys say Jose Rivera’s doctors told him he had symptoms consistent with E. coli. The lawsuit says Riviera Beach’s contaminated water is most likely the cause.
Rivera says he’s feeling better now, but at one point, it was so bad he had to go to the emergency room.
“It was horrible,” said Rivera.
Jose Rivera says between September and November, his doctors told him he had symptoms consistent with E. coli including severe stomach pains, nausea and vomiting.
Rivera says the doctors never knew what could have been causing this.
“He had a genuine fear of leaving the home because he did not know when he would have to run to the bathroom,” said Nick Johnson, Jose Rivera’s attorney. “That’s how quickly that onset of stomach pain and having to go to the bathroom would happen.”
In February, the news that fecal matter got into the drinking water came out. At that point, Jose Rivera stopped drinking city water. Now he says he is no longer sick.
“Feeling better. Doing much better,” said Rivera.
While the city in January originally said it found fecal matter in one well back in June that didn’t make it into drinking water, the mayor later said that was not accurate, that fecal matter indeed did make it into drinking water.
Though Riviera Beach city leaders say the drinking water is safe, Jose Rivera’s attorneys say the city’s Utility Special District failed to do its duty and it’s most likely the drinking water that made their client sick.
“All that needed to be done was to issue that boil water notice,” said Johnson. “Yes, it is an inconvenience but it pales in comparison to the inconvenience of someone like Mr. Rivera and many other people to have to go through months and weeks of being sick without knowing what was causing these symptoms.”
Riviera Beach city leaders tell WPBF 25 News they will not comment on pending litigation.
The mayor says he’s ordered an outside agency to investigate exactly what happened last June.
Jose Rivera’s attorneys are not only suing the city for monetary damages but for all documents related to the incident to be released to the public.
The attorneys also say they have more clients who have gotten sick, and they’ll be filing lawsuits against the city in the coming weeks and months.
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Source: wpbf
