An 84-year-old doctor will not serve jail time for manslaughter in connection with a 2009 fatal explosion at his Lauderdale-by-the-Sea hyperbaric chamber facility.
Dr. George Daviglus, along with center employee Lance Bark, were arrested after it was determined that they were grossly negligent in failing to maintain the equipment in which Vincenza Pesce, 62, and her 4-year-old grandson Francesco Martinisi perished when a chamber exploded on May 1, 2009, according to the BSO.
A fire was started by static electricity inside the chamber, and the two victims were engulfed in flames in the nearly two minutes it took to free them, according to the BSO.
Daviglus, of Miami, had worked at the hyperbaric center since 1998 and told police that he ran its day-to-day operations, according to the affidavit against him. The BSO blamed him and Bark, saying that they did not properly supervise Pesce and her grandson when they were inside the chamber and did not know the proper decompression procedures once the fire began.
Daviglus will serve house arrest, and was ordered to pay $47,000 in prosecution costs.
