Florida Widow Blames Firehouse Subs' Firefighter Theme for Husband's Choking Death – New Times Broward

Friday, Apr 29, 2016 during 8:57 a.m.

Firehouse Subs is a sequence grill that whips adult prohibited sandwiches. The emporium has a firefighting theme: firefighters’ apparatus and memorabilia are mounted on a walls in stores. However, according to one lawsuit filed final month in Palm Beach County, this firefighting thesis and décor was taken literally by staff, creation some trust that they, too, could save lives.

Sadly, no one could save Mario Skoff. On Mar 24, 2014, a 77-year-old was eating a turkey sandwich during a Firehouse Subs on NE Fifth Ave. in Boca Raton. Suddenly, Skoff started choking. Firehouse Subs’ staff darted toward him and achieved mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, though allegedly though clearing Skoff’s blocked airway. According to a complaint, this pushed a square of turkey sandwich serve down his esophagus. Skoff died. 

Two years later, Skoff’s widow, Maryann, is still devastated, her profession Mike Glasser tells New Times. She is now suing Firehouse Subs for her husband’s prejudicial death, claiming that a firefighting thesis finished staff contemptuous adequate to try to try CPR — instead of watchful for a tangible initial responders to arrive. The fit accuses authorization owners Doroty and Edvard Dessalines for not training their employees how to provide choking victims.

“The thesis and décor of fire-fighting, puncture rescue, and EMS during Firehouse Subs constituted an provocation by Defendant A Family Investment Inc. to a employees to meddle and describe assist to Decedent,” a censure says.

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It goes on: “It is pretty foreseeable that employees would have a enterprise to assistance customer/choking victims, and, carrying possibly unsound training or no training in safely digest assist to choking victims, or carrying not been educated to mount transparent and call 911 in box of choking emergencies, pretty foreseeably poses a estimable risk to choking victims by exacerbating a jeopardy presented by choking.”

A orator for Firehouse Subs was incompetent to criticism on a ongoing litigation.

Attorney Mike Glasser tells New Times: “CPR would not be a initial choice when someone is choking. It usually exacerbates it by forcing food serve into a airway, since a Heimlich scheme is what everybody considers to be a usually judicious option.”

Florida law dictates that each food use investiture posts a pointer illustrating how to perform a Heimlich scheme in a “conspicuous place” for “rendering puncture initial assist to a choking victim.” It serve states that “the investiture be obliged for familiarizing a employees with a process of digest such initial aid.”

Firehouse Subs is a Jacksonville-based sequence shaped in 1994 by former firefighters. With franchises sprinkled via North America, Firehouse Subs rolls 66 million subs a year. The lawsuit alleges that Firehouse doesn’t do adequate to sight employees how to respond to choking emergencies: “As a outcome of a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation being finished though clearing a airway, a deterrent of partially chewed sandwich was forced down and lodged in Decedent’s trachea…As a approach and present means of Firehouse subs employees forcing a deterrent serve down Decedent’s trachea, Decedent died.”

According to his obituary, Mario Skoff was innate in Croatia though changed to New York. That’s where he met Maryann when he was 18. The integrate married and had 6 children and 18 grandchildren. Skoff served in a Coast Guard and CIA. The necrology states: “He was a dedicated husband, father, grandfather, and best crony who was desired by all and had a captivating personality…He spoke many languages and finished people feel really gentle and revelation humorous jokes…He desired to dance. We all skip him dearly.”

Glasser informs New Times that lawsuit is in a early stages and that Firehouse Subs has nonetheless to contention an answer to a suit. 

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