A family has filed a lawsuit against South Carolina, and both county and park officials, for negligence in their maintenance of a child-sized-train that resulted in an accident, as reported by the Associated Press for the Charlotte Observer and other news media outlets.
Twenty seven passengers were injured, and a six-year-old boy lost his life, when a children’s train derailed on March 19 at Cleveland Park near downtown Spartanburg, S.C.
The ride is almost sixty years old.
Tom Killoren, a Spartanburg attorney representing the family, said of their decision to file, “I think the family is shocked by what happened and what they've learned over the past few days and feel like they are ready to bring a lawsuit to try to bring light to what has happened.”
The suit was filed in circuit court in Spartanburg County.
Those named in the lawsuit for their negligence include the county, the parks commission, and the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
The lawsuit alleges that park employees were responsible for warning passengers of potential dangers. It is also alleged that state officials should have ensured that the ride was hazard-free before allowing people access.
Killoren represents passenger B.H., along with his wife and two children. They were three of the twenty seven on board the small train when it derailed and toppled off of a bridge.
Services for the boy that lost his life, B.E., took place at Corinth Baptist Church in Gaffney.
Comments requested from both a spokeswoman for the county parks commission, and a representative for the state labor department, were not made available.
An investigation into the cause of the crash is continuing and authorities have not yet offered any information.
County officials are accused in the lawsuit of not supervising the train operator adequately, or inspecting the park’s tracks. State officials are also accused in the suit for their failure to inspect the train.
State officials have fired the last inspector, D.C., that approved the ride for operation. It had come to light that the man admitted to falsifying his March 16 inspection report.
The Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said that D.C. clearly did not check the ride because a battery in the train was dead – rendering it inoperable.
The department is now in the process of reviewing other facilities that D.C. had inspected.
M.C., the train’s driver, told a police officer on his way to the hospital that “I was going too (expletive) fast.” M.C. was also not available for comment.
Witnesses reported seeing the train speed up in its third lap of its course. A minister from Corinth Baptist Church, and acting as a spokesman for members of his church that were among the injured, also said that the train was moving far too fast before it derailed.
One of the pastors from Corinth Baptist Church is the father of the young boy that died.
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