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YMCA Sued Over Teen’s Drowning Death

Ray Dawson filed a lawsuit against the YMCA and its lifeguards seven months after his son Marc died from drowning in a YMCA pool. 

The complaint was filed in state Supreme Court charging the YMCA and four of its employees with “recklessly and negligently permitting and approving the decedent’s breath holding activity,” even though the employees were well aware of the inherent dangers.

Marc was a 17-year-old Harborsfield High School student and a YMCA lifeguard at the time of the accident on February 18.  He was training to become a Navy SEAL.  Marc was practicing holding his breath under water in the YMCA’s lap pool when he lost consciousness.  One of the lifeguards pulled him out of the water after he reportedly checked on Marc just before the accident.

The teen was transported to Huntington Hospital and later transferred to Schneider’s Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park, where he died on February 25.

Marc’s family is pursing both non-specified compensatory and punitive damages.  The YMCA of Glen Cove, YMCA corporate headquarters for Long Island, Kaitlyn Wulfken of Greenlawn, and Adam Dworkin of Northport, the 17-year-old lifeguards who had been on duty, Georgene Howell, an aquatics coordinator for the YMCA, and Donna Porter, a lifeguard, are all named in the lawsuit.

Ray Dawson made the remark that this could happen to any kid and that “it’s a dangerous, dangerous thing that’s going on there.  They’ve got these young kids there who are supposedly the lifeguards, and they’re poorly trained.  I do believe that if the response was what it should have been, my son would still be here with me.”

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