As a barge descended on a tiny duck boat in July 2010, 16-year-old Dora Schwendtner threw her life jacket overboard to help the duck's first mate, her family's lawyer said Monday.
"Watching the tape of my daughter dying was horrifying," Schwendtner's father, Peter, said through an interpreter shortly after opening arguments in the federal trial over the accident, which killed Schwendtner and Szabolcs Prem, who were visiting from Hungary.
In his opening statement, Robert Mongeluzzi showed dramatic video of the accident. The video was hard to see, but Mongeluzzi said the person throwing the life preserver was wearing a white shirt, as Schwendtner was that day, and was sitting in her seat.
