A law firm announced Monday that it has reached a settlement exceeding over $16 million in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department , stemming from a 2020 ship fire incident on Blount Island that injured 11 firefighters.
On June 4, 2020, hundreds of firefighters responded to the ship called the Hoegh Xiamen, a Norway car carrier ship, after a fire broke out.
“Communication was impossible because the captain and crew only spoke Chinese,” the Pajcic & Pajcic law firm said.
The fire caused an explosion in which the National Transportation Safety Board said happened because of a spark from a car battery on the ship. Additionally, the NTSB said in its report released a year and a half after the incident that car batteries weren’t disconnected and secured before the cargo ship left the dock.
The fire resulted in $40 million in damage and sent several Jacksonville firefighters to a hospital. No one died in the explosion, but some of the first responders were severely injured . The injured employees represented in the lawsuit include two chiefs, two lieutenants, two engineers, two paramedics and two firefighters. None of the vessel’s 21 crew members reported injuries.