Family of Cos Cob Marina Drowning Victim Plans to Sue Town

The family of an 80-year-old man who drowned after he accidentally drove off the edge of the town-owned Cos Cob Marina last September, has filed a notice of intention to sue the town on grounds of negligence.

The notice of claim was filed at Town Hall in December, claiming the Sept. 14 accident occurred because the town had not installed guard rails at the water’s edge, according to Greenwich Time.

Patrick Conroy, 80, of Wall, NJ, was pulled from the waters of the Mianus River inside a minivan by scuba divers as his family looked on. The family had come to Cos Cob Marina to launch their pleasure boat for a day of boating on Long Island Sound.

Greenwich Police said at the time that Conroy was driving the 2016 Chrysler Town and Country minivan near the water’s edge, began to perform a three-point turn on the flat driveway leading up to the boat ramp. The minivan then drove nose first off the north side of the ramp and onto the seawall and as Conroy’s son tried to free his father from the vehicle, it slipped into 10 to 12-feet of water.

The legal notice claims the family suffered distress while watching the incident and that there wasn’t a guardrail in place that would have prevented the minivan from entering the water.

The Greenwich Time story can be found here.

Photo: A crane pulls the minivan from Cos Cob Marina on Sept. 14, 2015. Credit: courtesy of News 12.