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Date: February 14, 2008 Alters Law Attorney: Thomas A. Culmo Palm Beach Daily News By MICHELE DARGAN Daily News Staff Writer Sasha Herrera and her fianc� Giancarlo "J.C." Squicimari were spending a few relaxing days at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach last Memorial Day weekend, seven months before they were to be married. They were on the beach with friends when they heard a woman screaming. The woman's two young daughters were struggling in the ocean - one farther out and in danger of drowning. Squicimari and his friend jumped into the water. The two girls and Squicimari's friend survived. Squicimari, 31, did not. He was pulled under by a rip current and drowned. The hotel was responsible for his death, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. "I was scared for his life, but I didn't think he was going to die," Herrera said. "I didn't think he wasn't going to come back to me. It's just something that happened so quickly. It's unbearable. It's a nightmare - the worst thing that can happen to anyone." Olga Giner, Squicimari's mother, has sued the Four Seasons, its owner JV Associates and Seabreeze Cabana Co., which operated beach-related activities for the hotel. The wrongful-death suit claims the hotel was negligent in failing to warn guests about the possibility of dangerous rip currents on that day, May 27, 2007. In addition, the hotel did not post instructions on how to escape a rip current and failed to station a lifeguard on its private beach, the lawsuit says. Kerry Shorr, spokeswoman for the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach, declined to comment on the suit. "We understand that a lawsuit has been filed in response to a tragic accident that happened last May," she said in a statement. "Our sympathies go out to the family. We'll leave it in the hands of our lawyers to respond in court." At a Wednesday news conference, plaintiff's attorney Tom Culmo said the National Weather Service had warned of a high risk of dangerous rip currents in Palm Beach County that day, but the hotel failed to warn its guests. "At the time of this incident, the Four Seasons had no specific warnings for riptides, no explanations as to what riptides were, no explanations for what people, in the event they got caught in riptides, were supposed to do to extricate themselves," Culmo said. "This hotel, the Four Seasons, had completely inadequate warnings there." Culmo, of Miami, said the Four Seasons now has a sign at the beach explaining how to deal with rip currents. But the hotel should issue warnings on a day-to-day basis when rip currents are present, he said. Culmo said he is not planning to ask for a specific amount in damages. "I would probably leave it up to the jury to do what is just and fair," he said. Giner, of West Kendall, said she filed the lawsuit to help prevent the same thing from happening to someone else. "He was a wonderful human being, very caring, very giving," Giner said. "He was all about helping others. ... He would have done it again and again if he had to. I believe that accident could have been prevented. ... He had a wonderful future ahead of him, so many plans, and his life was cut way too short. ... What he did was an heroic act. I'm proud of him. But I was proud of him always."
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