Jury selection begins for a Polar Bear Plunge wrongful death suit filed by the parents of Tracy Hottenstein, who died after *accidentally* falling into icy waters on the New Jersey Shore in 2009.
Hottenstein, 35 and a marathon runner, was attending the annual winter event in Sea Isle City solely as a spectator.
According to witnesses, she had been drinking with friends for several hours before she somehow fell off a pier and was later found unconscious in the water.
Hottenstein’s death by hypothermia and drowning was initially investigated as foul play, but charges of wrongdoing eventually focused on first responders, all of whom failed to administer any aid once her body was recovered.
Attorneys for the deceased woman’s family assert that paramedics arrived on the scene after police officers and mistakenly took their word that Tracy Hottenstein was already beyond resuscitation.
The trauma team then further doomed Hottenstein by informing emergency-room doctors at a nearby hospital the same, so that no lifesaving measures were taken before the victim was pronounced dead of overexposure.
The gravamen of the wrongful death suit for negligent homicide is that people suffering from hypothermia can often appear dead yet still be successfully revived -- as long as they receive immediate and aggressive medical treatment.
Records show that at no point was Tracy Hottenstein even physically examined for a pulse.
