April 27 (Bloomberg) -- A cargo-ship steward who was taken hostage by Somali pirates sued Waterman Steamship Corp. and Maersk Line Ltd. for sending him into what he called “pirate- infested waters” without adequate protection.

Richard E. Hicks, 53, who was chief steward preparing food for crewmembers of the Maersk Alabama, sued today in state court in Houston. Waterman, based in Mobile, Alabama, provided the crew and Maersk, based Norfolk, Virginia, owns the ship.

The Maersk Alabama, one of at least 14 vessels attacked off the Somali coast this month, on April 8 became the first U.S.- flagged carrier to be hijacked. The crew managed to escape and U.S. snipers killed pirates holding the vessel’s captain.

“I’m going through a lot of mental stress,” Hicks, of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, said in a phone interview. “I can’t return to my job. I thought I was going to die out there.”

Kevin Spears, a Maersk spokesman, declined to comment. A phone call to Waterman seeking comment wasn’t returned.

When the pirates attacked, Hicks and other crewmembers gathered in the engine room for almost 12 hours, according to a statement from his lawyer, Terry Bryant of Houston. The engine room was dark and reached about 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius), Hicks said in the statement. “We were all cramping up with heat stroke symptoms,” he said.

The companies didn’t provide adequate protection to the crew, according to the petition.

‘Rescue Operations’

They relied instead “on the United States military (and taxpayers) to provide after-the-fact rescue operations at substantially more cost and risk to human life than what would have been incurred by defendants had they provided appropriate levels of security in the first place,” Hicks said in his complaint.

In the interview, Hicks said he has worked on ships for 32 years and he sued “to make it a lot better for other seafarers out there. Maybe after this they’ll take more precautions in the future.”

Hicks “sustained and suffered physical pain” and “mental anguish,” according to his petition. He seeks compensation for medical costs and other damages.

“We filed the suit to get some national attention, frankly, on these pirate situations,” Bryant, Hicks’s lawyer, said in a phone interview. “We chose to file suit in Houston because this area probably has more Jones Act cases than anywhere else in the country.”

The Jones Act allows injured ship workers to sue for damages due to the shipowner’s negligence, he said.

The case is Hicks v. Waterman Steamship Corp., 09-26129, District Court of Harris County, Texas (Houston).

To contact the reporter on this story: Thom Weidlich in New York at tweidlich@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 27, 2009 17:56 EDT