A New York City lawyer has filed a lawsuit against Chelsea Piers after he suffered a severe injury when he was hit in the groin by a baseball while taking some swings in the batting cage. 52-year-old Ethan Brecher says that the pitching machine started firing off 75-mile-per-hour fastballs seconds after he stepped into the cage and the first one struck him in the thigh and then hit his testicles.
“I pick up the bat, I take a step, I’m feeling really good and all of a sudden I was blindsided by a 75-mph ball that hit the interior of my right thigh and ricocheted to my testicle and I fell down in agony,” Brecher told the New York Post.
While he was writhing around in pain on the ground, the machine continued to fire nine more baseballs in his direction.
“It was the worst pain. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was like a billion. It was unimaginable,” he said.
Brecher was rushed to the hospital where an ultrasound found evidence of bruising and internal bleeding. He was prescribed Oxycontin for the pain and was told that the damage could result in infertility.
He blames Chelsea Piers for programming the machine to start firing baseball seconds after a person steps into the cage.
“What they should have done is given me longer before the pitch was launched. I don’t think I was ambling or doing anything, particularly slowly. I had been hitting the balls hundreds of times [over the summer], so I knew how long it would take,” Brecher explained.
He is seeking $100,000 in damages and wants Chelsea Piers to alter their machines to give people more time to get ready to take swings in the cage.
“This should be taken as a warning that there is a flaw in the mechanism here. If a little kid was hit in the head and wasn’t wearing a helmet, they could have died,” he said.
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