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Family of girl, 4, who drowned in pool files lawsuit against South Carolina resort
The family of a 4-year-old Kentucky girl who drowned in a pool in South Carolina has filed a lawsuit against the resort — where two other children have died over three years.
Demi Williams drowned on April 1, 2021 in one of the pools at the Crown Reef Beach Resort and Waterpark in Myrtle Beach.
Officials said died from asphyxiation due to drowning, WPDE reported.
The resort had no lifeguards and was poorly lit, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family, which hopes the action will lead to more safety measures to prevent more tragedies, NBC News reported.
“Something has to be done,” Demi’s mom, Destiny Morgan, told the outlet in her first interview since she lost her child. “I have to do something in honor of my child to make sure that this never happens again.”
Morgan said a nurse detected a faint pulse after Demi was pulled from the pool and that other guests rushed to find a defibrillator to resuscitate the girl.
But the lifesaving devices — which may pose a risk of electrocution when used on drowning victims — are not required by state law to be put in swimming areas and were unavailable to the rescuers.
State law all doesn’t require the resort to have lifeguards at all its pools, NBC News reported.
Demi is at least the third child to have drowned at Crown Reef Beach Resort and Waterpark between 2018 and 2021, including a 5-year-old boy who died a few days after Demi, according to the outlet.
The lawsuit, which seeks monetary damages, accuses the resort of creating “unsafe, dangerous, or defective” conditions by not having a lifeguard on duty and failing to provide an adequate number workers to protect guests, among other allegations.
It blames the death on Crown Reef’s “negligent, reckless, willful” actions.
Morgan, who has four other children, described Demi as “the sweetest little girl” who was having a great time in the resort’s lazy river attraction, which has a gentle current that allows guests to go tubing.
She said her daughter asked if she could ride in a raft by herself in the 3-foot-deep water.
Morgan said she sat in a nearby hot tub after allowing Demi to ride in her own tube behind her sister. But when the sister got off the ride, she couldn’t find Demi, according to NBC News.
The frantic mom searched the grounds for Demi before she noticed another guest pulling her out of one of the resort’s pools, not breathing. Neither she nor her other kids know how Demi got there from the lazy river, but Morgan said her daughter may have slipped and fallen in.
Several guests began chest compressions, including the nurse who detect a faint pulse and yelled for an automated external defibrillator, or AED, which delivers an electric shock to the heart.
But no one could find an AED, a lifeguard or even a resort staff member, the lawsuit alleges.
“There wasn’t anything that would indicate that they gave a damn about a human life,” Morgan told NBC News.
Demi was rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
State law does not require the resort to to have lifeguards at its pools or lazy river, the outlet reported, citing the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Only waterslides are required to have lifeguards, while other water areas must have signs indicating there is no lifeguard on duty, NBC News reported.
During its most recent inspection in July 2023, all the pools at the resort were found to have the proper signs stating there were not lifeguards, according to the outlet.
The proper signs also had reportedly been present during inspections in 2021 and in 2018, when Malazya Fayall, 7, drowned in one of its pools.
Morgan and her attorneys, Justin Lovely and Amy Lawrence, want their lawsuit to result in safety improvements at the resort.
“More lifeguards, better lighting, more staffing — those are simple solutions that would solve this,” Lovely told NBC News. “Close the pool at night if you don’t want to have somebody there at shift.”
Malazya’s mom, Latoya Fayall, sued the resort in 2020 and settled last after blaming the death on an overcrowded pool with no lifeguard and no cameras monitoring the area.
Crown Reef did not admit responsibility for Malazya’s death, instead blaming Fayall, but confirmed there was no lifeguard and said there were “numerous signs indicating there are no lifeguards on duty in the pool area,” according to NBC News.
Morgan was initially arrested on a charge of unlawful neglect of a child, even though she had not been drinking alcohol and had not left her kids alone, her lawyers said.
The charge was dismissed last month.
Fayall also was initially charged before it too was dropped, NBC News reported.
Crown Reef’s attorney and general manager did not respond to multiple requests for comment from NBC News.
In another recent case, 8-year-old Aliyah Jaico was sucked into a pipe in a “lazy river-style” pool at the Houston DoubleTree hotel and found dead more than half a day later.
She drowned and suffered from “mechanical asphyxiation,” according to the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The pool has been found to have multiple violations after being remodeled and did not comply with federal laws meant to prevent drownings, according to reports.
Aliyah’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hotel and its parent companies, accusing them of gross negligence and seeking more than $1 million in damages.
A Hilton spokesperson said in a statement: “Hilton offers our sincere condolences to the family and loved ones for the tragic loss of a young girl at the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow.
“This property is independently owned and operated by a third party. Hilton does not own, manage, or control the day-to-day operations of the property and does not employ any of the property’s staff or its third-party operators,” the rep said.
