HHI family sues Sea Pines for car crash, drowning in lagoon: ‘Sinking into black water’
The wife of a Hilton Head man who died after a car crashed into a Sea Pines lagoon is suing the residential community for wrongful death due to alleged hazardous driving conditions, revealing new details in last May’s tragic double drowning.
Both passengers in the car — Michael Stephen Weingarten, 83, and Neil Hilsen, 81 — died the night of May 1, 2023 when the car rolled down a “steep slope of land” into the lagoon, according to the court summons filed Tuesday. Weingarten’s brother, who was backing out of a private driveway on Beach Lagoon Road, was able to escape the rapidly sinking car and survived.
Representing her husband’s estate, Janet Weingarten is suing three Sea Pines affiliate companies for leaving the lagoon’s edge “completely unprotected,” while other areas in the neighborhood used raised flower beds, wood pilings and fencing to prevent cars from driving into the water.
The unprotected edge is particularly perilous because it lies directly behind a private driveway where vehicles would back out onto the road, the lawsuit claims. Court documents also state that Sea Pines staff “have still not taken any steps whatsoever to remedy this dangerous condition.”
Representatives from the three defendant companies — Sea Pines Resort, Sea Pines Community Services Associates and Sea Pines Country Club — did not immediately respond to requests for comment left over voicemail.
“This is one of the most tragic, yet easily preventable, wrongful death matters I have seen in my 20-plus years as an attorney,” according to a statement sent Thursday from personal injury lawyer Ashley Twombley, who represents Janet Weingarten. “It caused unimaginable pain and suffering and needlessly took the life of a wonderful man living out his well-earned golden years with his wife.”
‘Sliding out of control’
The accident happened around 10:50 p.m. on May 1, 2023, as the 2018 Mazda backed out of the driveway of a home on Beach Lagoon Road, located in north Sea Pines near the Hilton Head oceanfront. The driver and two passengers were heading home after visiting with friends.
That’s when the car’s wheels dropped onto a ledge on the opposite end of the road, sending the vehicle “sliding out of control, backwards, and into the waters of the dark lagoon.” Black water began filling the car.
While Weingarten’s brother was able to escape, a “rush of incoming water” kept the 83-year-old from getting out, the lawsuit says. Weingarten and Hilsen died of drowning, according to the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office. Along with Carolina Towing and a Sea Pines maintenance team, Sheriff’s deputies later recovered the car from the water.
“(Weingarten’s) death was untimely, unfortunate and occurred in an unimaginable way: trapped in a car sinking into black water and unable to escape,” the lawsuit reads.
Originally from Philadelphia, where he met his wife in ninth grade English class, Weingarten is remembered in his obituary as a beloved family patriarch, lover of gardening and devoted volunteer at the Congregation Beth Yam synagogue on Hilton Head.
