Pittsburgh Reporter Files Lawsuit
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Longtime KDKA Reporter Dave Crawley has filed a lawsuit after taking part in an event that has kept him from going back to work for 2 years.
Crawley has sued Red Bull, the EQT Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta and a marketing agency, claiming that he lost his spleen and suffered a traumatic brain injury after plunging two stories into the Allegheny River during a media event at the Red Bull Flugtag event in 2017.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette writes that Crawley, who has worked for the television station since 1988, has still not returned to work because of the injuries that he said occurred while participating in the event for a story.
The station aired a light-hearted piece featuring Crawley that gave no hint that the reporter was injured. It included footage of the run-up to the stunt, his plunge and the aftermath, as he stood holding up a Red Bull Flugtag towel, apparently no worse for the wear.
The lawsuit, filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court by Crawley and his wife, Laurel Herman, includes claims for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or nondisclosure, and negligence.
In addition to Red Bull and the Regatta, also named as a defendant is M&C Saatchi, a New York marketing agency.
“Red Bull has a long history of hosting major public events and the safety of spectators and participants is always our primary concern. The first Red Bull Flugtag took place in 1991, and it has been a well-known event over the years,” Red Bull said in a statement.
Messages left with the other two named defendants were not returned.
According to the lawsuit, Crawley was contacted in the days before the Flugtag event — which travels to a different city each year — and invited to cover it from a special media area.
Flugtag, which translates to “flying day,” features teams which design contraptions to “fly” from a pier into a river. According to Red Bull’s website, 40 teams in Pittsburgh were chosen to participate that year.
Crawley, who was 70 at the time, was assigned by KDKA to participate in one of two "media craft" flights, which would give two local media personalities a chance to take part in the event.
The lawsuit, which repeatedly refers to the flight vehicle as a "contraption," said Crawley was given the choice between riding off the 22-foot-high Red Bull Flugtag pier and into the Allegheny River on either a flying craft made to look like a ketchup bottle with a sit-in cockpit, or a “Stanley Cup” craft, which he believed would have a flat deck. He picked the Stanley Cup.
"Dave Crawley does not want to accept this assignment, but due to recent work history where his employer had passed him over for stories because of his age or health conditions, felt compelled to do so for fear of harming his position at KDKA or, potentially, KDKA's relationship with the Regatta,” the lawsuit alleged.
In addition, the complaint continued, Crawley felt that he could trust both Red Bull and the Regatta not to put a local reporter in a position of harm.
