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Family rescued at sea with sick baby sues phone company over cut satellite service

This undated image provided by Sariah English shows Eric and Charlotte Kaufman with their daughters, Lyra, 1, and Cora, 3. Rescuers have stabilized the condition Lyra, with her family on a crippled sailboat hundreds of miles off the coast of Mexico, and a U.S. Navy warship was headed toward the vessel, officials said Friday night, April 4, 2014.
This undated image provided by Sariah English shows Eric and Charlotte Kaufman with their daughters, Lyra, 1, and Cora, 3. Rescuers have stabilized the condition Lyra, with her family on a crippled sailboat hundreds of miles off the coast of Mexico, and a U.S. Navy warship was headed toward the vessel, officials said Friday night, April 4, 2014.

SAN DIEGO – A U.S. couple rescued with their sick 1-year-old from a disabled sailboat hundreds of miles off the Mexican coast are suing a satellite phone company, contending they lost their boat because their phone service was wrongly cut.

Eric and Charlotte Kaufman were on an around-the-world cruise in April with their 1-year-old and 3-year-old daughters when the vomiting, feverish younger girl forced them to call for help.

READ MORE: Aunt says niece rescued at sea showed signs of salmonella

U-T San Diego reports the lawsuit filed Monday claims that if they hadn’t lost service, they would’ve been able to get medical advice over the phone. Instead, they were forced to sound the alarm that brought the Coast Guard to their rescue and resulted in their boat being sunk.

Whenever Communications, the company in charge of the service, did not reply to requests for comment.

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