Testimony: It Took 8 Hours to Find a Doctor After African Bandits Attacked

A Redondo Beach man told a Los Angeles jury Tuesday that it took seven to eight hours to find a doctor to see his pregnant wife after she was shot in the abdomen by a gunman who attacked them while they were taking a nature walk in Tanzania, Africa.

• Related: Website Cited in Claim Against Chatsworth Travel Firm

Testifying in a lawsuit hearing against Chatsworth-based Brendan Vacations Inc., Rg Lutz told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury that his spouse, Jacqueline, suffered severe injuries, but survived.

However, a doctor at a Nairobi, Kenya, hospital said the expectant mother's wounds were too much for her 4-month-old fetus, Lutz said.

"He said the baby did not make it," Lutz said. "He asked me if I wanted to know what the sex was. I said yes, and he said it was a boy."

Lutz and his spouse, as well as his friend from childhood, Raymond Mollica of New York, filed suit against Brendan Vacations in March 2009. They allege Brendan made numerous representations on its website that led them to believe everyone involved in their safari trip once they reached Africa was a Brendan employee.

The Lutzes and Mollica maintain they only learned later that Brendan delegated most aspects of the trip to third-party companies, including the ground tour operator.

Brendan Vacations has denied any wrongdoing. Defense attorneys say the company did not select the activities on the safari to Tanzania and did not employ the two nature walk guides who were with the Lutzes and Mollica when the bandits attacked them during their "Splendor in the Serengeti" tour in March 2007.

According to Lutz, he and Mollica had previously vacationed together and decided to do so again to celebrate their 40th birthdays.

He testified that he did extensive research and narrowed his choices to South America and Africa, ultimately settling on the latter. He said he consulted the website of Vacations to Go, an Internet-based travel agency, and liked what he saw involving an eight-day safari to East Africa offered by Brendan.

Lutz said he then examined Brendan's background by going to its website. He said he was impressed that Brendan was family-owned and that the website invited readers to compare the company's services to others.

Lutz said the website said nothing about other companies and their employees conducting part or all of Brendan tours.

"I thought everyone was Brendan," Lutz said. "I felt I was in good hands."

Lutz testified that he and his wife met with Mollica and his friend's then-fiancee, Celia Vergel DeDios, at the hotel the first night of the trip. He said they discussed their plans to take the nature walk the next morning.

He said they met the tour guides, Herman Kiriama and Charles Safari, before the two couples and a fifth tourist, a woman from Great Britain, embarked on the walk to Lake Duluti near Arusha, Tanzania.

Lutz said the first of two men who confronted the group about an hour into their trek from their luxury hotel in Tanzania was holding a machete.

"I saw a bandit come out of where the trail was—run out of the forest," Lutz said. "He was yelling something. I couldn't figure out what he was saying."

But the assailant soon made his goals clear, according to Lutz, a 44-year-old commercial airline pilot employed by Korean Air.

"He said, 'Give me your money' over and over again," Lutz said. "He was directing us all to lie down, so we all laid down."

The plaintiffs contend the surviving tour guide precipitated the incident by trying to disarm the bandit with the machete.

"I was shocked," Lutz said of Kiriama's actions. "I could not understand why in the world he would do that when we were complying."

Safari, who was being trained at the time by Kiriama, was shot in the head and died.

Lutz testified he had not yet seen the other bandit when he all of a sudden heard three to four shots. He said he then realized that his wife and Mollica had been shot.

"I could see on her back side a tremendous amount of blood," Lutz said. "The bullet wound went out of the lower part of her back near her spine."

He said his spouse was able to make it back to the hotel with the group, but the manager did not allow them in.

"He did not want to alert the other tourists," he said.

Lutz testified he was able to convince a man to give them a ride to a nearby clinic along a pothole-filled road. However, the facility was only staffed by nurses, so they had to then get a flight to Nairobi, he said.

But even the hospital had no doctors when they arrived because all of them were at a funeral, Lutz said.

Jacqueline Lutz was hospitalized for eight days and had to undergo a colostomy, Lutz said. He said that after the couple returned home, he took a month off from work to be with his wife, who underwent additional surgery. He said both of them also saw a psychologist.

Lutz said Jacqueline Lutz was not immediately successful in getting pregnant again.

"She felt she was broken because she couldn't have a baby," Lutz said, fighting back tears.

But eventually, she had a bone fragment removed from her uterus, Lutz testified. That helped her get pregnant again, and she gave birth to a girl last Dec. 7, Lutz said.

Mollica, who was wounded in the left leg, is now married to DeDios.

—Bill Hetherman, City News Service