Summit Climbing Gym: Photo from summitgyms.com
One Lake Highlands family says it was not safe enough one day last year when their son broke his elbow, an injury that still plagues him today.
They say Summit Climbing Gym on Forest Lane near Greenville is to blame for their son’s injuries, which happened during a birthday party he attended there last year.
The plaintiffs have requested we not publish their name, in the interest of privacy for their young son, who is a student at Hamilton Park Elementary. On behalf of his 7-year-old son, a Lake Highlands dad is suing Summit Climbing Gym after, he says, the gym failed to provide adequate staff for supervision of the 10-12 children at the rock-climbing party.
Summit is a popular destination for kids’ parties. The boy at the center of the suit was invited to a party there last January. Only one Summit employee was present to assist the children, so he asked three fathers to help with supervision, according to the lawsuit.
The father of the injured child was assisting other children on a climbing wall, he says, when his son incurred injuries while coming down a slide used for descending the wall. At the time, he says, he believed the Summit employee was supervising his son. The father adds that the slide upon which his son was hurt was slick and lacked proper padding, conditions which he says created “substantial risk.”
The injured rock climber post surgery
The boy was in a cast for a while before undergoing two arm surgeries. He still has scars and limited use of the arm; he missed his whole season of basketball, the sport he loves. “The break was on a growth plate so we do not know how permanent or lasting this might be,” his father says.
The father says he tried to negotiate with Summit and its insurance carriers out of court to pay medical expenses, but that they could not reach an agreement. In his opinion, he says, they “have not given attention to this case that it deserves.”
The father/plaintiff says he is not looking for a payday, only to cover the large medical expenses and possible future expenses. Whatever damages are left over, should they succeed in the lawsuit, will be put into a trust until the boy is 18.
The counsel for Summit Gym Jennifer Aufricht disputes that Summit’s slide was unsafe.
“The slide in question is safer than typical. It has walls along each side and padding at the landing,” she says. “It is unfortunate that the child landed the wrong way. That is never fun. But there is inherent risk to sliding, even on a safer-than-typical slide.”
As for the staffing issue, she won’t comment on the particular incident since she had not yet received the filing, but she did say that “Summit Gym wants children to have fun and it is not a policy to have an employee standing at the bottom of the slide to catch the child as he slides because the slide is safe, safer than a typical slide, and that’s what sliding is all about — sliding, off a slide, not into an employee’s arms.”
All Summit users are supposed to sign a waiver before climbing. Summit had a waiver on file for the young plaintiff in this case prior to the day of the accident, says his father.
The waiver climbers receive today is largely “beefed-up” compared to the one the plaintiff signed in 2014, says the father of the injured child. “They changed it shortly after we first contacted them,” he says. “I am not sure if that is a coincidence or not.”
