Victim Awarded $1.7M In Movie Theater Stampede

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MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) -- It's been four years but time hasn't healed the pain for a south Florida woman trampled during a stampede at a South Beach movie theater.

"I think about it everyday," said Maria Navas, recalling that fateful night on August 2, 2012 at the Regal Cinemas on Alton Road. "Maybe I would be in a different place in my life right, then waiting four years for this to end."

Moviegoers were already on edge after a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado just days earlier during a screening of the third film in Christian Bale's Batman trilogy, "The Dark Knight Rises."

Navas was watching the movie at the South Beach Regal theater when police say a man left the theater, then came back wearing gloves yelling "This is it" into the crowd.

"That was scary because everybody rushed the stairs," Navas recalled. "Everybody ran for their lives. Nobody was being courteous, understandably so. Trying to get out as quick as possible."

The theater quickly emptied into what could only be described as a stampede.

In the aftermath, Navas' right foot was crushed. She needed two surgeries to put 18 plates and screws in her foot that will never be fully healed.

"Getting up in the morning was horrendous because I had to sleep with my foot elevated. In the morning, I had to bring it down. So all the blood would rush and it felt like they were dropping concrete blocks on my foot," said Navas.

Her lawyer convinced a jury the trampling didn't have to happen and that the theater should have done more to stop it.

For their negligence, Navas was awarded $1.7 million for her permanent injury.

"Their own company sent notification to all theaters that they needed to be more vigilant, on high alert, and take seriously, and look at all the policies and procedures, as well as to see if anything else needed to be done different" said attorney Jason Brenner.

Navas said she hopes she won't have to worry about medical costs anymore.

"If they had had more security, or been more on top of what was going on, especially in this particular movie, it was the same movie as the Dark Knight Rises, maybe it could have been prevented," said Navas.

The man accused of causing the stampede was arrested. He said it was all a misunderstanding.

It's unclear on whether or not Regal will appeal the verdict.