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Wrongful death lawsuit: Rafting company downplayed danger of ‘slaughterhouse’ rapids near Aspen

Still shot from video just before the man falls out the first time, and roughly 3 1/2 minutes before the man falls out of the raft for the second time on the Roaring Fork River near Aspen. (Jeremy Wallace/Aspen Times)

DENVER — The widow of a man killed during a commercial rafting trip down the Roaring Fork River has sued an Aspen Rafting company claiming its employees misrepresented the risk of running rapids called “Slaughterhouse” before her husband tumbled off their raft twice before dying.

Allison Parker of Maryland brought the lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Denver against Aspen Whitewater Rafting. The lawsuit claims the rafting company’s bad advice and reckless conduct caused her husband James Abromitis, 58, to be twice ejected from their raft and “flushed downriver to his death.”

Parker’s attorney Alan Feldman of Aspen is seeking damages exceeding $75,000, plus a triple penalty as a result of fraud against Aspen Whitewater.

Jim Ingram, owner of Aspen Whitewater Rafting, could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday morning.

The accident happened on June 15, 2016, the week that Parker and Abromitis visited Aspen on vacation for the Food & Wine Classic. Abromitis read Aspen Whitewater’s description of the Slaughterhouse rafting trip as being suitable for “a gung-ho beginner. Experience is “not required,” the website said.

Read the full story at DenverPost.com.


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