Peloton, a company that produces and sells connected fitness equipment, such as bikes and treadmills, was a huge success story during the pandemic when gyms closed down and fitness enthusiasts were forced to find other ways to exercise at home.
But once gyms reopened, the picture was no longer as rosy for the embattled company whose bikes are now cluttering online second-hand shopping sites such as eBay.
In 2022 and 2023, Peloton faced serious challenges, some of which involved lawsuits about safety issues that also resulted in massive recalls of their products.
Now they have another lawsuit on their hands.
The family of a New York man who died last year claims that he was killed by his Peloton bike in a new lawsuit obtained by the Daily Beast.
The mother of 32-year-old Ryan Furtado alleged in the lawsuit, which is available to view on the outlet’s website, that he was doing a “core” workout on the bike in January 2022, which required him to get off the bike and continue exercises on the floor.
Johanna Furtado, claimed that once her son was done with the exercises, he “used the bike to assist him in getting up,” but the bike “spun around” hitting him on his face and neck “severing a carotid artery in his neck killing him instantly.”
Ms. Furtado claims that the warning on the bike, which advised that if used to “pull oneself up from the floor during a workout,” could be hazardous, was insufficient to the “foreseeable misuse” that people would do exactly that.
The lawsuit was filed earlier this year in March in Brooklyn civil Supreme Court, though the Daily Beast broke the initial news of the filing on Wednesday.
In response to the lawsuit, a Peloton spokesperson told PEOPLE on Thursday, “We offer our deepest sympathy and condolences to the Furtado family for this unfortunate accident. As a Member-first company, the health and safety of our Member community is a top priority.”
Peloton also filed a response to the lawsuit in June which denied the allegations and said that Furtado’s “alleged injuries or damages” were “caused or contributed to” by his own “negligence,” which meant that the company was not “legally responsible.”
The company also said, “No action or inaction by Peloton was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s or plaintiff’s decedent’s alleged injuries or damages.”
Peloton issued a recall earlier this year on over two million bikes due to safety concerns after multiple users reported that the seat broke and detached from the bike while in use, causing multiple injuries. This applied to all bikes in the PL01 model sold between January 2018 and May 2023 in the U.S.
The company also voluntary recalled the company’s Tread+ and Tread treadmills in 2021 after a 1-year-old child died in an accident involving the treadmill.
However, neither of these recalls was related to the cause of Furtado’s unfortunate death.
