Parents can pursue wrongful death suit against Sea Isle City emergency workers

More than two years after the death of their daughter in Sea Isle City, Tracy Hottenstein’s parents have been granted permission by a federal judge to sue emergency workers who responded to Hottenstein’s death.

Hottenstein, 35, was in Sea Isle in February 2009 for the annual Polar Bear Plunge when her body was found near a bar she’d been at with friends. She was discovered by a fisherman hours after security tape shows her leaving the bar, and her parents say emergency workers failed to provide care that could have saved her life.

Claims of negligent infliction of emotional distress against AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, the AtlantiCare MICU medics and the doctor who pronounced Hottenstein dead by phone have been dismissed, but wrongful death and negligence claims will go forward, as the Press of Atlantic City reports.

Lawyers for the emergency workers say Hottenstein was dead of hypothermia when help arrived; her parents say an effort should have been made to resuscitate Hottenstein.