Aurora attorney injured in Florida plane crash dies
Sun-Times Media Wire May 27, 2012 7:44PM
First responders from DeLand Fire Department, Volusia County Fire Services, EVAC and DeLand Police Department work the scene of a small plane crash at the Publix Supermarket on East International Speedway Boulevard, in DeLand, Fla., on Monday April 2, 2012. The small plane sputtered and crashed in flames into the Florida shopping center, injuring at least five people as frightened shoppers rushed from the building, authorities and reports said. (AP Photo/The Daytona Beach News-Journal, Peter Bauer)
Updated: May 28, 2012 10:30PM
An Aurora attorney has died more than a month after he was severely injured when a single-engine plane crashed into a supermarket in Florida.
Kim Presbrey, 60, of the 2300 block of Wyckwood Drive in Aurora, was pronounced dead at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood at 4:08 p.m. on Saturday, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Presbrey suffered third-degree burns after the plane crashed into a Publix supermarket roof in Deland, Fla., north of Orlando, on April 2, family spokesman and longtime friend Bill Weir said at the time. The plane eventually landed between two aisles in the middle of the store, officials said.
His passenger Thomas Rhoades, a commercial pilot from Illinois, and three people in the store also were injured.
Although he was an experienced pilot, Presbrey was new to the amateur-built Seawind 3000 aircraft, which he had purchased six weeks earlier after it had not been flown for three years. The plane crashed shortly after takeoff from the DeLand Municipal Airport, just north of Orlando.
Presbrey was originally transported to the intensive care unit at Orlando Regional Medical Center.
Presbrey was the managing partner of Presbrey & Associates, and had practiced workers compensation law since 1977. He was past president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and a member of the Board of Governors of the Illinois State Bar Association.
