Mother Sues After Baby Dies on Airport Conveyer Belt

She'd just placed her 5-month-old in a car seat on the belt when it began to move
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 19, 2014 4:00 AM CDT
Mother Sues After Baby Dies on Airport Conveyer Belt
A woman waits for her luggage at an empty conveyer belt at Brussels International Airport, Tuesday, Aug.12, 2008. Scores of arriving and departing flights were canceled or delayed Tuesday at the Brussels airport where luggage handlers struck for better working conditions for a second day.   (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)

Almost exactly a year after losing her 5-month-old baby in a freak airport conveyer belt accident, mother Nathania Terry is suing the luggage handling system supplier for wrongful death, negligence, design defects, and failure to warn. According to her complaint, which she filed in federal court last week, Terry placed her daughter in her car seat on a stationary conveyor belt so she could retrieve baby Vashti's stroller. Without warning, the belt turned on with enough force to throw the baby into a crevice where two belts meet, crushing her to death, reports Courthouse News Service. "Ms. Terry frantically tried to rescue Vashti, but her efforts were unsuccessful," the complaint reads.

At the time, the baby's American mother had just arrived in Alicante, Spain, where the Canadian father was waiting to take the family on a vacation in nearby Dénia. Terry was traveling with baby Vashti and her older son, reports the Daily Mail. She is claiming in her lawsuit against Netherlands-based Vanderlande Industries that there was no warning that the weight of an object could activate sensors and turn the belt on, and no way to stop the belt from moving. Spanish authorities said last year that safety standards were met and the baby died because of parental neglect. (In another freak accident recently, a pregnant mother and her unborn child were killed by a stray bullet in Philadelphia.)

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