Gym told to pay $619,650 in man's death because it didn't have a defibrillator

From JEMS:

Health-club chain LA Fitness must pay $619,650 to the family of a Fort Lauderdale man who died of sudden cardiac arrest while working out at an Oakland Park gym, a Broward Circuit Court jury ordered Wednesday.

The jury needed only two hours of deliberations to find that LA Fitness' negligence contributed to Alessio Tringali's death. No one attempted to perform CPR on the dying 49-year-old man and the club didn't have an automated external defibrillator that could have saved his life, argued Russell Adler, the attorney for Tringali's family.

The case is believed to be one of the first in the country where a health club has been held liable for failing to have a defibrillator on site, Adler said.

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