Cathy is mortified by the incident and both laughs and cries when she talks about it.

SoCalDem

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Thu Jan-20-11 07:31 AM
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Cathy is mortified by the incident and both laughs and cries when she talks about it.

Edited on Thu Jan-20-11 07:32 AM by SoCalDem

1 step leads texter to unwanted fame
Jason Brudereck see more articles by Jason Brudereck
Reading Eagle

http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=280405

Cathy Cruz Marrero remembers her foot striking the base of the fountain as she held her purse and clutched the cell phone she'd been using to text. The phone popped out of her hand and landed in the water as Cathy began her plunge into the Berkshire Mall fountain. "I saw the water coming at me, I could see the pennies and nickels at the bottom of the fountain and then I was in it," said Cathy, 49, a Reading resident who works in a store at the Wyomissing mall. The fall on Jan. 12 was caught on security camera video that has brought her unwanted fame since it was posted Friday to YouTube and Facebook, where it has been viewed at least 1.6 million times. Many media outlets worldwide have shown the footage. Cathy is mortified by the incident and both laughs and cries when she talks about it. "My issue is I don't think security was professional because they didn't send anyone to check on me until 20 minutes later and I had already left," Cathy said Wednesday in her first interview since the accident. In the video, the voices of people laughing as they watch the security video footage can be heard. Cathy said they are mall security personnel. "Instead of laughing, they should have said, 'Is she OK?' and been down there right away to check on me," she said. Her attorney, James M. Polyak of Reading, said he plans to conduct an investigation into what happened.

"We are troubled by the fact that anyone at the Berkshire Mall responsible for releasing this video would find humor in an employee injured on the premises," Polyak said. "We intend to hold the appropriate persons responsible. "No one from that security office came to her aid in a timely manner." Her identity as the woman in the video was confirmed both by Polyak and mall employees who witnessed the accident.

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"I usually don't walk and text, but I did this day," she said. "I won't anymore." She said she never texts while driving. "That's so dangerous," she said. While she has had a chuckle about it, she said she's also had about enough. "It's funny, but you need to see the serious side of it," she said. "What if it was a senior citizen? Would it be funny then?"

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... church member called her after the accident to say she recognized Cathy in the video from the way she walks.

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"They took a misfortune and made a mockery," she said. "I wanted to crawl up in bed for days." Walter offered to jump in the fountain himself to make her feel better. "I wanted to do that, stand up and say, 'Hey, she's Fountain Girl and now I'm the Fountain Guy' if it would make her feel better," said Walter, who said they are born-again Christians. Since then, the Internet has swirled with questions about Cathy and the video's authenticity. She points to a bruise on her leg as further proof beyond being identified by other mall workers as the woman who fell into the fountain. Many have also wondered what happened to her and her phone after the fall. In the video, she is seen walking to a nearby store and talking to employees she knows.

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Walter put the wet phone in dry rice, which absorbed the moisture and the phone still worked.

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Cathy said she asked security for video to see who left the store with her phone . Security denied her request, she said.

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