Posted on 04/19/2013

JACKSONVILLE, FLA--The family of a 15-year-old boy who died after a collision on a baseball field nearly three years ago has filed a negligence lawsuit against the city of Jacksonville.

Andrew Cohn's family says firefighters with the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department were slow in response and did not jolt him with a defibrillator, a procedure they say could have saved his life.

Cohn, of St. Marys, Ga., stepped in the first-base path and collided with a runner during a game in Dinsmore. He suffered sudden cardiac arrest and died at a hospital.

"It's something you wake up with every day. You don't understand why," said Harold Cohn, Andrew's father.

The lawsuit says rescuers who responded were negligent because they did not inform dispatch in a timely matter that they were held up by a train. The lawsuit also says the crew wasted vital minutes trying to get through a locked gate at the park and then also wasted precious time standing in the outfield.

"The crowd was just shrill, yelling at them to jump the fence, go around, hurry," Harold Cohn said. "There were two or three occasions I look up in the outfield and saw saw two people standing there with medical bags just standing there looking and peering out here."

Finally, the lawsuit says rescuers never showed up with a portable defibrillator, then lied on a report about using one.

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SOURCE: WJXT Jacksonville

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