MILFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Last Summer, Carson Dunn was out at Camp Dearborn in Milford Township, having fun in the water, when the unthinkable happened.
Dunn fell from a swim platform and hit his chest on a ladder attached to the structure.
The 10-year-old died, and now his family says that platform should have never been there.
They filed a lawsuit Wednesday (April 19), asking a judge for at least $25,000, but Dunn’s mother, Carly Burgess, said there is no amount of money to bring her son back.
She hopes to make sure what happened to their family doesn’t happen to anyone else.
“I relive it every day,” said Burgess.
Burgess will never forget July 6, 2022, when her son died after falling from the play structure in the water called the jungle float.
At that time, the structure had only been at Camp Dearborn for about a week.
“It was going to be Carson’s final jump, and then they were going to be going back, and he missed his footing, and he grabbed the railing that was not properly secured and somehow slipped and fell and hit his chest on the ladder that was underneath the point where he was jumping,” Burgess said.
Burgess said her son’s heart stopped in the ambulance.
Nine months later, her attorney Ven Johnson filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Dearborn, which runs the site in Milford Township, Ripping Waters LLC, and Splash Island LLC.
Those Michigan companies own the jungle float and Sport Pontoons LLC and Tarzan Boat LLC, Tennessee’s builders, and manufacturers.
“All of them should be held accountable and responsible, and what we want is this thing to be eliminated and never have any 10-year-old child ever injured or killed again,” said Johnson.
Johnson said Dunn’s autopsy results showed the 10-year-old had an internal injury that led him to bleed to death.
“He had a torn vena cava,” Johnson said. “A vena cava laceration is what it’s called. We see those in high-speed crashes. So he had a very high-impact, very high-speed, high-velocity strike to the left side of his chest.”
Johnson admits they may run into governmental immunity regarding the City of Dearborn, but Dunn’s grandfather Steve Burgess said, “That’s really what needs to change. It really takes more than a lawsuit, and it takes the will of the people in the state to say that’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s not right. And it kills people. So let’s hold people accountable.”
As the temperatures rise and families head to the beach, Burgess pleaded, “No matter how much your kids beg you to go on it, don’t let them. Carson assured me, you know, ‘I’m 10 years old mom, I’m a big kid now; I can do this.’”
Local 4 contacted the City of Dearborn but has yet to hear back.
There is a scholarship in Carson Dunn’s honor. For more information, click here.
