According to People a woman claimed that her son had tried to use the bike to get up from one of Peloton’s “core exercises” when it “spun around” and hit him on his face and neck, severing an artery.
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.
Furtado’s mother, Johanna Furtado, claimed that once he 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.”
She claimed in the lawsuit that when the New York Police Department found him in his apartment with the bike — which was purchased by Furtado just six months prior in July 2021 — it was still resting on his neck and face.
Johanna alleged that there was only a single warning label on the bike’s front leg that the bike could cause injury if used to “pull oneself up from the floor during a workout,” and Peloton should have more adequately warned against 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 June, linked on the Daily Beast page, 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.
