Three years after a 4-year-old boy nearly drowned at Lake Lanier’s Margaritaville waterpark and was left with permanent injuries, a partial settlement of $16 million has been reached.
The settlement — a consent judgment — comes after the Hall County waterpark closed off all swimming access to the lake’s beach ahead of this year’s Memorial Day weekend, though it is not clear if the lawsuit had any bearing on that decision. Representatives for Margaritaville and attorneys for the park and its operating companies declined to comment on the litigation Tuesday. Bucky Perry, the park’s vice president, said only that “Margaritaville at Lanier Islands places the overall safety of our guests as our highest priority.”
The boy, identified only as I.C. in the lawsuit filed by his mother, is 7 years old now and continues to need around-the-clock care, the family’s attorney, Ashley Mitchell, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“His physicians told the family immediately after this happened that he would never walk, talk, eat, be able to care for himself ever again,” Mitchell said. “That was a message that was given to them very early on. He has surpassed every expectation that’s been given to him by his physicians, but the nature of a traumatic brain injury is just you’re never going to get back to that baseline.”
The family’s nightmare unfolded June 14, 2020, when they went for a swim at Paradise Beach, according to the lawsuit. The area is a cove of Lake Lanier that is capped by the Port of Indecision Marina.
No lifeguards were present when I.C. started to drown, the lawsuit alleges, adding that park staff didn’t respond for an estimated 10 minutes. When he was rescued, the boy was rushed to Northeast Georgia Medical Center and then flown to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston Hospital. He was eventually transferred to Scottish Rite Hospital for inpatient rehabilitation for complications caused by cardiac arrest, hypoxic brain injury and acute respiratory failure and released in September 2020, according to the suit.
“He has made great, great strides,” Mitchell said. “And the family is thrilled with any sort of progress that he can make over time.”
The money from the consent judgment, ordered by Gwinnett County Judge Veronica Cope on June 21, will help the family get the equipment and care needed to make the boy’s day-to-day life easier and give him the best chance to regain as much of his health as possible, Mitchell said.
Less than a year before I.C.’s near-drowning, a father and son drowned in the same area of the park on July 11, 2019. Libao Chen, 30, was trying to rescue his son, 9-year-old Ethan, that day when they both went underwater and did not resurface. They died a week later within a day of each other.
In 2021, a boy had to be resuscitated after nearly drowning at the park, Mitchell noted. And on Memorial Day in 2022, 20-year-old Jose Camarillo of Stone Mountain drowned there while swimming.
The family’s recent lawsuit remains active, with one of the eight defendants — Safe Harbor Development LLC — not agreeing to settle. And while it’s not clear if the lawsuit is what led to the beach closure, Mitchell said it asked the park to “take a hard look at their safety measures.”
“We wanted them specifically to hire a consultant to help give them good advice on all aspects that can be improved there in light of all of the multiple tragedies that have happened in the last few years,” she said.
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