Why was David Dobrik sued for $10,000,000 in 2022? Everything about crane stunt that resulted in cre

Publish date: 2024-06-04

More than a year ago, in June 2022, popular vlogger and YouTuber David Dobrik was sued for $10,000,000 by a former member of the Vlog Squad, Jeff Wittek, after a stunt went awry. The lawsuit alleged that Jeff had received fatal injuries while attempting a crane stunt. It claimed that this was directly due to the actions of Dobrik and sought reimbursement of approximately $10 million.

As a popular online personality, David Dobrik is quite well known in YouTube and vlogging circles. Having made a name for himself during the golden age of Vine, his involvement in a lawsuit of this magnitude naturally garnered a lot of attention, with fans and viewers from around the world interested in what happened.

This article attempts to summarize the crane accident from 2020, which apparently almost turned Jeff Wittek blind, and the aftermath with details of the lawsuit as available to the public.

Details about the David Dobrik lawsuit and crane stunt explained

Jeff Wittek himself has become quite a popular podcast host and YouTuber and used to make videos with David Dobrik back in the day before the incident. After not really speaking out for a couple of years following the crane stunt, Jeff announced the lawsuit and his intentions to TMZ, where he gave his account of the stunt and David's involvement.

As per Wittek, he had traveled to Utah Lake in Provo with the intention of vlogging a particular stunt with the help of an industrial excavator or a crane. The machine had a rope attached to its bucket, which could be moved in a circular motion at considerable speed. The original plan was apparently for the vloggers to use the rope to swing on the lake's surface while riding inflatable tubes.

However, Jeff Wittek had told the press that after reaching there, David Dobrik mentioned that people could use the rope to be swung in the air. When it was Jeff's turn to go, David used excessive speeds, which were erratic and caused him to collide with the side of the crane after it had come to an abrupt stop. Later a video of the incident with the hashtag #justiceforjeff went viral on social media, showcasing the exact moment when Jeff got hurt, with people rushing to his aid as he fell into the water.

The collision had caused the YouTuber a number of complications needing major surgery, and he recorded most of the medical ailments on his various social media channels, including covering it on his podcast and future vlogs. That said, Jeff Wittek refrained from openly calling out David Dobrik until the lawsuit was filed in 2022.

After certain aspects of their fallout were revealed in a Patreon stream, Jeff mentioned that his erstwhile YouTube partner had not checked up on him in the week following the surgery (during which he could have turned blind). He also claimed that Dobrik was lying about whose idea it was to do the crane stunt in the first place.

Timestamp 10:07

Of course, David Dobrik himself has refuted these claims saying it was Jeff Wittek's own idea that got him injured. Casey Neistat's documentary on Dobrik also deals with different accounts of the incident. Still, the long and short of it is that Jeff claims that it was not his idea to do the stunt that eventually got him hospitalized.

He has also gone on record stating that David has been trying to downplay the situation from the beginning and that he let him erase the incident from the original video and did the courtesy of not pressing charges because of their friendship. Only after Dobrik insisted publicly about not being responsible for the crane stunt did Wittek start considering a lawsuit.

Not much is known about the legal case in itself, but David Dobrik is fighting the charges. In a podcast episode from March 2022, he did take a certain amount of responsibility for Jeff Wittek's injuries but remained adamant that the idea was not his but Jeff's.

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