Poisoned by his own vessel
He had run towboats for three decades. In January 2015 he boarded his vessel, ate a meal from the galley, and within hours was violently ill. The diagnosis, when it finally came, was foodborne botulism — a toxin so rare that health departments across four states and the CDC, answering our records requests, could not find another case anywhere in the region. The source wasn’t a mystery. It was the boat.
Botulism causes descending paralysis. Time is everything. The crew’s response wasn’t fast — and the man who drove him off the boat never called to check on him again. His cell records proved it.
What a ’systems failure’ looks like
His employer — one of the largest barge companies in the United States — had food-safety training videos. What it didn’t have was a food-safety system: no real program for storage, labeling, or temperature; untrained galley hands feeding a working crew miles from help. A vessel’s galley isn’t a kitchen. It’s the only restaurant in a hundred miles, and the law holds its owner to that responsibility.
The cost of the failure was catastrophic: respiratory failure, a tracheostomy and ventilator, months in intensive care, a MRSA infection through the trach, permanent damage to his left hand, and a power wheelchair he will use for the rest of his life. A man who had commanded vessels for thirty years now needed round-the-clock care. His life care plan alone approached $5.2 million.
What the evidence showed
Every fact below came from the company’s own witnesses and records — and the public health record.
- Health departments in four states and the CDC confirmed no other botulism case in the region — isolating the vessel’s galley as the source.
- A pre-boarding physical three days earlier showed him healthy.
- The company had food-safety training videos; its galley followed none of them.
- Cell-phone records showed the crewman who drove him off the boat never called to check on him.
- The company’s own injury-review paperwork documented the response, step by missing step.
The offer, and the answer
At mediation in January 2017 — with trial set for March — the company’s last firm offer was $6 million. It moved to $7 million a week later, then $7.75 million. The answer stayed the same: the number had to fund the rest of his life, not part of it. In March 2017 the case resolved for $10 Million — believed to be among the largest recoveries the company has ever paid — structured to guarantee his care and his family’s security for life. Brian Beckcom led the case, with Vuk Vujasinovic.
Four million dollars is the difference between a settlement that sounds large and one that actually funds a lifetime of round-the-clock care. We don’t price cases on the company’s math.
More from the record
Every case is different. Prior results depend on the facts of the individual case and do not guarantee a similar outcome.