SAN DIEGO (KSBW) — A San Diego family is suing Hyatt Hotel Corporation, claiming the company is at fault for the death of their child.
The family was vacationing at a resort in Mexico when they say Nico Carter fell from the ninth-floor balcony.
“He was the most selfless, kind and giving and loving boy ever. He was my everything, he was my best friend,” mother Anastasia Duboshina said.
The parents called it “a living nightmare,” saying “You always hope you are going to wake up from it one day. We can’t accept he’s gone.”
Now Nico’s parents are suing Hyatt Hotels Corporation over the death of their baby boy. The suit alleges Hyatt’s “inexcusable negligence” caused “the tragic and entirely preventable death of Nico.”
“We feel like Hyatt let us down. We relied on them for a safe environment for our family and we feel like they let us down in the most horrific and tragic way,” Carter said.
The parents booked a stay at the Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta in October 2021. On the third day of their vacation, James and Nico walked from their ninth-floor room to the common area elevator bay. James said he watched Nico look through the balcony glass windows, which happened to be an identical balcony set up as in their room.
James said Nico then vanished. The father said he saw his son fall through the glass balcony where a window panel was missing.
Nico was just two weeks shy of his second birthday.
“And then I heard this scream, I never heard anything like that before from my husband, and my heart dropped, I knew something terrible happened. That’s it like that’s it, there is no way back. We are on the ninth floor, there is no even hope for …there’s no hope for, I literally died with my son that day,” Duboshina said.
The suit claims on Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta’s website reassured Hyatt valued “Safety First, Wellbeing Always.”
But the parents said the statement could not be further from what they experienced.
“Nobody prepares you for that, nobody teaches you how to bury a child. Something like this senseless and completely preventable shouldn’t have happened. If they did have a glass in place, my son would still be here with us,” Duboshina said.
“How in the world can a major hotel miss the fact there is a window pane that has no safety glass on the ninth floor, no less,” said Robert Francavilla, the lawyer representing Nico’s parents.
Francavilla said he has not heard back yet from Hyatt Hotels Corporation. The suit seeks better hotel safety standards and justice for Nico.
“These trips are designed for families, including James and Anastasia, to make memories that will last a lifetime, but this isn’t the kind of memory anybody wanted to make,” Francavilla said. “Hopefully our story will prevent future tragedies, we really hope….otherwise he died for nothing.”
“I love you, son, I miss you, miss you so much, he gave us the best two years of our lives,” Carter and Duboshina said fighting back tears.
Hyatt had not responded to requests for comment from Nexstar’s FOX 5 San Diego at the time of publication.
