Attorney confirms lawsuit for Sapelo Gangway collapse
The gangway collapse killed seven people and injured several others. All seven people who died were senior citizens celebrating Gullah Geechee culture at a festival earlier that day.
Civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump is representing the families of three people who died, and a person critically injured in the incident.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said at least 20 people went into the water when the gangway collapsed.
'It is a structural failure. There should be very, very little maintenance to an aluminum gangway like that, but we'll see what the investigation unfolds,' Georgia DNR Commissioner Walter Rabon said at a news conference in October following the collapse.
The gangway was installed in 2021 and according to the Georgia DNR, the last time it was inspected was in December 2023 by Crescent Equipment Company.
Stick with WSAV as we learn more.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Georgia's last shorebird and seabird colonies threatened by people, pets, rising tides
Four miles from the marshy shores of Richmond Hill's Fort McAllister Historic State Park sits the Ogeechee Bar: a four-acre sandy oasis just barely above the high tide line, full of tidal pools and Spartina grass. Thousands of royal terns, least terns, sandpipers, American oystercatchers—and their shrieks—fill the air upon our arrival, leaving behind their confetti-speckled green, lavender and white eggs exposed in dimples they dug in the sand. But their departure means that we can't stay for long. The 90-degree heat can cook the chicks unable to regulate their own body temperatures. They need their parents to squat over them for shade, says Georgia Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Fletcher Smith. 'Five to 15 minutes of the birds being off the nest can kill the whole colony.' But the chicks battle more than heat. This bird haven has already been overcome by king and high tides twice this year that washed away two previous rounds of eggs. Four dead black skimmer chicks lay near the water, three of which are surrounded by a dog's paw prints. 'It's very suspicious,' says Smith, as he and a couple volunteers carry poles and rope to section off about 100 more nests from wandering people and pets. The Ogeechee Bar is one of the last remaining sites for breeding shorebirds and seabirds along the Georgia coast, along with the Brunswick Bird Island, Cumberland Dividings, and Little Tybee Cabbage Island Natural Area. The DNR is now proposing to list these four islands under the protection of the Bird Island Rule enacted in 1998 to shelter five of Georgia's bird breeding islands from human disturbance. But now that these five islands are already compromised, adding these four islands is necessary to protect vulnerable eggs and chicks—especially from pets. 'Someone out here with a dog could wipe out most of the productivity from the state of Georgia and America,' says Georgia DNR program manager Timothy Keyes. The original bird islands Georgia's coast has long served as a rest stop along the Atlantic Flyaway for birds migrating at least a few thousand miles between South America and Greenland, or in some cases, as far as the Arctic Circle. Many of those migrating birds historically nested on Georgia's beach fronts but have left as swaths of shorelines were overtaken by tourism, development and terrestrial predators. When they turned to natural sand bars that formed at the mouths of rivers, those disappeared, too. 'In the last 15 or 20 years, we've had much more erosion and loss than we have had accretion,' says Keyes. And 'sea level rise on the coast doesn't help.' But it appeared that five islands could still provide nesting nooks offshore. In 1998, the DNR enacted the Bird Island Rule to protect the entirety of St. Catherines Island Bar Natural Area, Egg Island Bar Natural Area and Satilla River Marsh Island Natural Area, and restricted parts of the Pelican Spit Natural Area and Williamson Island from human activity. On all, pets are prohibited. For 30 years, this rule has stood without change. But these islands have since succumbed to hurricanes, rising sea level, erosion and infiltration by predators—rendering them inhospitable for nesting. 'All of them are not as good as they were in the late '90s,' says Keyes. The new islands While the law may be outdated, the birds have already moved on. 'These birds are adapted to changing environments,' says Keyes. 'If the bar emerges is high enough, birds will try to use it.' One of the bars just barely high enough for birds to nest is the Ogeechee Bar—a naturally created island made of sediments carried by Ogeechee River, full of fish that get picked up by birds and deposited into the mouths of chicks. Horseshoe crabs also spawn on this island—a critical food source for the 4,000 migrating red knots, a federally threatened species. Another is Brunswick Bird Island—a 9-acre sand pile built by the Army Corps of Engineers looking for a place to dump sediment when dredging the Brunswick port in 2007. A cheap option for the Corps ended up sheltering the largest shorebird and seabird nesting colony in coastal Georgia, partially due the island's 14-foot height that can withstand king tides and so far, some storms. Imported rocks lining its edge prevent sand from slipping into the water. Birds began nesting on Brunswick Bird Island almost immediately after it emerged, and they now seem quite cozy with their roommates—or at least, have an amicable understanding of who goes where, and who gets along with whom. 'Least terns and skimmers always nest together,' Keyes says, as do royal terns and sandwich terns. 'Pelicans typically just nest with pelicans.' Lone ospreys, eagles, and turkey vultures circle overhead to snatch up a chick, but the thick canopy of thousands of birds diving towards their offspring with mouths full of shrimp and fish make hunting difficult. The more birds on the island, 'the more eyes are out looking for predators,' says Keyes. The deadliest predators are four-legged But there are some predators that the birds cannot protect their chicks and eggs from. Short nonnative crowfoot grass covers the top of Brunswick Island like a green and yellow buzzcut, which the DNR is attempting to control with prescribed burns and herbicides sprayed during the winter months, to avoid attracting mammals like hogs and coyotes that can swim for miles from the mainland to the island, Keyes says. And when a predator wreaks havoc one season, the birds 'won't come again,' says Smith, which is what happened on Williamson Island and Little Egg Island with raccoons. They will remember 'for a lifetime, and these birds can live for 20 to 30 years.' As for dogs, the DNR and partner organizations can only rope off sensitive areas of the island, and hope people comply. 'Virtually every time we come out here on a weekend, somebody is bringing dogs,' says Smith. 'For now, we tell them to try to keep their dog on the leash... and keep them away from the seabird colony.' The dogs scare off the birds from their nests, leaving them exposed to heat and predation. 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You can reach her at jmagtoto@ This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Four islands to be protected for Georgia's last shorebird colonies Solve the daily Crossword
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