As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Chicago Tribune News, the parents of a young boy stricken with cancer, that drowned while on a trip through the American Dream Flite organization, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit.
The organization does not allow parents to accompany their children on the trips, supervisors were not in attendance and there was no lifeguard on duty when the boy, T.T. Jr., 12, drowned in a swimming pool of a Orlando hotel.
American Dream Flite, a Michigan-based operation, is similar in vein to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in that both provide terminally ill children with dream-fulfilling trips. Make-A-Wish had given T.T. a trip a few months before American Dream Flite took him to Florida's Disneyworld.
Between the two trips A.J. had surgery for his condition and appeared to be doing better.
A.J., T.T.'s mother, has named both the organization and its insurer in the lawsuit, stating that negligence on behalf of the trip's organizer resulted in the death of her son. The suit is filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court and damages are yet to be specified.
Todd Korb, A.J.'s attorney stated, "He was supposed to be constantly supervised." Korb said that A.J.'s physicians had felt that the boy was up for the Orlando trip. However, while unsupervised in a swimming pool, A.J. suffered a seizure.
The suit alleges that American Dream Flite organizers failed to exercise reasonable care and didn't supervise T.T. properly.
Osceola County sheriffs reported that T.T. was swimming at the main pool in the Radisson Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, with other children that were also on the trip organized by American Dream Flite, at approximately 8 p.m. on April 28, 2010.
The other children were playing a game where they held their breath for as long as they could underwater. Allegedly T.T. told the others that he didn't want to play but when they came up for air, he was under the water.
At first the others assumed that T.T. had joined in the game. However, after one minute, he failed to return to the surface. One of the children saw him on the bottom of the pool, and as there was no lifeguard on duty, pulled him up.
Chaperons, that were also medical professionals, tried to resuscitate the boy.
The chaperons didn't witness T.T. going under the water.
An Orlando medical examiner ruled the cause of death as complications of near drowning. A residual glioblastoma multiforme – a malignant human brain tumor – was also noted as a contributing factor in his death.
Al Kutchins, an accountant that served as an advisor for the company that operated as Dream Flite, said the company had ended its operation in 2011 after being in business for approximately 30 years. Before 2011 the company, according to Kutchins, had completed 21 trips to Florida for children stricken with cancer.
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