The parents of a teenager who was killed last summer when a concrete wall inside the pool bathhouse at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia collapsed on top of him are now taking the service to federal court seeking damages.
Gabriel Stone, 14, died July 22, after a more than 3,000-pound partition wall in the bathhouse collapsed, killing him and injuring his older sibling and two friends, who were all at the base's Heritage Club pool to go swimming. His parents filed the civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia on Tuesday.
"In filing this lawsuit, Gabriel Stone's parents want to ensure that no other family suffers such a senseless tragedy," Atlanta-based attorneys Rod Edmond and Shofaetiyah Watson with the Edmond and Lindsay law firm told Military.com in a statement. "What happened to Gabriel was totally preventable and may well have been avoided if even the most basic of inspections were conducted over the years."
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The lawsuit from Stone's parents follows a little more than one month after the Air Force publicly released a 28-page accident investigation board report into Stone's death revealing the wall was not properly anchored or constructed back in 1969.
The Standard Building Code at the time more than five decades ago would have required "some type of lateral support, which was absent, such as rebar anchors" connecting the base of the wall to the floor, or "vertical supports attaching the sides" of the wall to the floor or ceiling "to prevent overturning," the Air Force report detailed.
Air Force Materiel Command, however, claimed that its findings "did not indicate a structural failure," but that it "fell over after some external force was applied." The command speculated that it collapsed from "no one touching" the wall to "anywhere from 1-3 people climbing" the divider, Military.com previously reported.
The new lawsuit reveals "at some point Gabriel and his friends grabbed the top of the partition wall" and "some of the boys attempted to get on top of the partition wall," when it began to sway.
The 14-year-old was pinned by the wall and died as a result of blunt force trauma, the lawsuit and the Air Force investigation revealed.
Another one of the boys "was treated for five broken ribs, a punctured lung and a cut above the right eye," and had to stay in the hospital for five to six days, the Air Force investigation said. The other two boys had minor injuries, including a busted lip and a hand laceration.
"The complaint asserts negligent inspection, maintenance and repair of the wall that crushed Gabriel Stone," a news release from the Atlanta-based attorneys said.
Named as defendants in the case is the Air Force, as well as unknown and unnamed "employees, agents, ostensible agents, and or contractors of the 78th Civil Engineer Squadron" and other officials.
Department of the Air Force officials declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Stone's parents are seeking an undisclosed amount of financial damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act and Georgia law; attorney fees; and any other damages a court deems acceptable, according to the lawsuit.
"While nothing can bring Gabriel back, it is our hope through this litigation that Gabriel's family will get accountability and justice and that other lives may be saved," Edmond and Watson told Military.com in a statement.
