For all them Texters out there...

[Ron Almeida]

[Chris Leavelle]

That women is suing the mall for not coming to her aid or some bullshit.

[John Hickman]

hahaha thats great!

[Matt "Gumby" Glach]

I LOLed

[Jack LaBarge]

Lmao!

[Ron Almeida]

it figures, she is the stupid one and now wants to sue...

That women is suing the mall for not coming to her aid or some bullshit.

[Nat Cummings]

Home » Headlines, News, USA » Cathy Cruz Marrero, fountain girl, discusses texting accident (VIDEO)Cathy Cruz Marrero, fountain girl, discusses texting accident (VIDEO)
Posted by deskofbrian on January 19, 2011 7 CommentsCathy Cruz Marrero remembers her foot striking the base of the fountain as she held her purse and clutched the cell phone she’d been using to text.

The phone popped out of her hand and landed in the water as Cathy began her plunge into the Berkshire Mall fountain.

“I saw the water coming at me, I could see the pennies and nickels at the bottom of the fountain and then I was in it,” said Cathy, 49, a Reading resident who works in a store at the mall.

The fall on Jan. 12 was caught on security camera video that has brought her unwanted fame since it was posted Friday to YouTube and Facebook, where it has been viewed at least 1.5 million times. Many media outlets worldwide have shown the footage.

Cathy is mortified by the incident and both laughs and cries when she talks about it.

“My issue is I don’t think security was professional because they didn’t send anyone to check on me until 20 minutes later and I had already left,” Cathy said Wednesday in her first interview since the accident.

In the video, the voices of people laughing as they watch the security video footage can be heard.

Cathy said they are mall security personnel.

“Instead of laughing, they should have said, ‘Is she OK?’ and been down there right away to check on me,” she said.

Her attorney, James M. Polyak, said he plans to conduct an investigation into what happened.

“We are troubled by the fact that anyone at the Berkshire Mall responsible for releasing this video would find humor in an employee injured on the premises,” Polyak said. “We intend to hold the appropriate persons responsible. No one from that security office came to her aid in a timely manner.”

Her identity as the woman in the video was confirmed both by Polyak and mall employees who witnessed the accident.

Cathy said she was leaving work that day and texting a friend from church who wanted to know her birthday and the birthday of her husband, Walter Marrero, 46, an unemployed maintenance worker.

“I usually don’t walk and text but I did this day,” she said. “I won’t anymore.”

She said she never texts while driving.

“That’s so dangerous,” she said.

While she has had a chuckle about it, she said she’s had about enough.

“It’s funny, but you need to see the serious side of it,” she said. “What if it was a senior citizen? Would it be funny then?”

She said she approached mall management about it and security officials told her it was not a big deal because no one could see her face in the video.

“But I know it’s me,” she said.

Mall officials did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.



Another church member called her after the accident to say she recognized Cathy in the video from the way she walks.

Cathy said she could have hit her head, especially if the fountain was empty, which it sometimes is for cleaning.

“They took a misfortune and made a mockery,” she said. “I wanted to crawl up in bed for days.”

Walter offered to jump in the fountain himself to make her feel better.

“I wanted to do that, stand up and say, ‘Hey, she’s Fountain Girl and now I’m the Fountain Guy’ if it would make her feel better,” said Walter, who said they are born-again Christians.

Since then, the Internet has swirled with questions about Cathy and the video’s authenticity.

She points to a bruise on her leg as further proof beyond being identified by other mall workers as the woman who fell into the fountain.

Many have also wondered what happened to her and her phone after the fall.

In the video, she is seen walking to a nearby store and talking to employees she knows.

“They said they felt bad,” Cathy said, and then with a laugh added, “The one woman said she wanted to give me a hug but said I was soaking wet.”

She trudged to the exit where her husband was waiting in a car for her.

“What did you do?” he cried out when he saw her.

She explained and they went home, where her clothes dried out.

In the video, Cathy can be seen picking up the phone from the fountain right after the fall.

Walter put the wet phone in dry rice, which absorbed the moisture and the phone still worked.

But back at work Sunday, the phone was stolen as Cathy helped customers in the store where she works.

“It’s been a bad week,” she said.

Cathy said she asked security for video to see who left the store with her phone.

Security denied her request, she said.

Since then, Cathy has twice seen people in the mall bump into others while walking and texting.

And Tuesday at the mall, a woman who was texting stepped off a curb right in front of Walter’s car as he was driving by.

“Imagine if I was driving a bus and couldn’t stop,” Walter said.

She said she came forward now to raise awareness of privacy issues, security problems and the dangers of texting.

“Everyone, be careful out there,” Walter said.

“Do not text and walk,” Cathy said.

http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=280405

http://deskofbrian.com/2011/01/cathy...ccident-video/

[Ron Almeida]

new twist and turn...

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749...e-law-23922546