City loses drowning case
COURTS | Bruce Rushton
Lifeguards who never practiced rescue plans. A complaint about no lifeguards on duty less than a month before tragedy struck. A 16-year-old boy who didn’t know how to swim.
It added up to a $1 million verdict against the city of Springfield on Tuesday as a Sangamon County jury sided with the family of Eric Jones, who drowned in 2007 at the Lake Springfield beach operated by City Water, Light and Power.
Just two lifeguards were watching 45,000 square feet of water when Jones disappeared 10 feet from a chair where lifeguard Dennis Caveny was watching a distant diving board. Caveny didn’t see Jones go under, nor did he immediately summon other lifeguards. Instead, he dove into murky water to search for the boy, who went under after he reached out to grab his brother Michael, also a non-swimmer, who had gone into water above his head.
Once summoned, other guards focused their search in the deepest part of the swimming area, even though Jones’ companions had said that the boy didn’t know how to swim. Lifeguards panicked, according to Todd Bresney, attorney for the plaintiff. They had never practiced and did not follow an emergency plan to find missing swimmers.
Less than a month before Jones drowned, a woman had complained that no lifeguards were on duty. During closing arguments, Bresney showed jurors a photograph of Caveny, the lifeguard who was closest to Jones. Caveny had no whistle around his neck in the photo taken the day of the drowning, and there was no flotation device in evidence, contrary to policy. Instead of watching the water, eight lifeguards were sunbathing, playing volleyball or otherwise relaxing.
Thomas Griffiths, an aquatics safety expert hired by the city, testified that Jones caused his own death by venturing into water over his head even though he couldn’t swim. But Bresney questioned Griffiths’ credibility by pointing out that he had billed the city for 10 hours of work writing a 15-page report that was mostly a cut-and-paste job from a report prepared for a previous case.
The city offered a five-figure settlement prior to trial, Bresney said. He noted that Jones went under when he reached out to save his brother who had stepped into a hidden drop-off. Jones, Bresney told jurors, was a boy who became a man in the final seconds of his life as he struggled to accomplish what lifeguards did not.
“Eric was a good boy who grew up and died doing their (lifeguards’) job,” Bresney said in closing arguments.
