Town in Washington state to pay $15 million to parents of 13-year-old who drowned at summer camp
SEATTLE — A city in Washington state will pay the parents of a teenage boy $15 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit they filed after he drowned at a summer camp in the city.
Darrell “DJ” McCutcheon, Jr. disappeared underwater in Florence Lake on Anderson Island, southwest of Seattle, on July 15, 2022, according to Pierce County Court records.
Brett Rosen, an attorney for the McCutcheon family, told the Seattle Times this week that Steilacoom agreed to pay $15 million to settle their lawsuit in late April.
A camp worker had left 13-year-old DJ and other teens at the lake that day while he went to pick up another group of children and a co-worker at the nearby ferry station, court records show.
DJ, who had never swum in open water before and was not provided with a life jacket, was underwater for about six minutes before bystanders rescued him and began CPR. He was flown to a hospital and died that day, court records said.
Earnest Roberts, who was walking on the beach at the time, swam out and saw the 13-year-old about ten feet underwater and pulled him to the surface.
“If he was adequate and supervised on his property as part of the summer camp group … that boy would not have died,” Roberts said, according to court records.
The boy’s parents, Tamicia and Darrell McCutcheon Sr., have sued the city for negligence.
“The most important thing for them is that this never happens to another child again,” Rosen said.
Paul Loveless, Steilacoom’s administrator, and Amanda Kuehn, the attorney, declined to speak to the newspaper, citing pending litigation because final dismissal paperwork had not yet been filed.
In a January lawsuit, the city sought to dismiss the couple’s wrongful death claim, saying Tamicia McCutcheon signed a waiver accepting risks including injury or death from participating in activities in or near water.
The couple’s attorneys argued that the “generic release” form did not describe any situation in which the children would be taken to open water.
The McCutcheons’ attorneys also said camp employees planned the outing knowing they would have to transport the campers from the ferry station in two groups, one of which would have to stay near the water. That decision violated policies in the city’s staff training manual, which stated that campers “must be supervised by a staff member at all times during program hours,” court records show.
The McCutcheons plan to use the settlement money to start a nonprofit organization focused on promoting water safety at summer camps and to create scholarships in their son’s name, Rosen said.