Duck boat victims’ families to receive $15 million settlement

The two companies operating the watercraft involved in the July 2010 duck-boat accident that killed two Hungarian tourists will pay their families a combined $15 million as part of a legal settlement reached this afternoon.

An additional $2 million will be split by 18 passengers on the duck boat who survived.

The parents of Szabolcs Prem, 20, and Dora Schwendtner, 16, who drowned when a barge pushed the duck boat they were riding on under water, were traveling to Hungary Wednesday and not available for comment.

"For the families, no amount can replace their priceless only children. They are literally at the airport in New York returning to their homeland in Hungary, not with what they wanted to return with most, their children, to begin a journey of closure and to move on with their lives," their lawyer Robert Mongeluzzi said.