A family has filed a lawsuit against USA Swimming, Kamehameha (Hawaii) Swim Club and the Kapolei Aquatic Center after their daughter drowned at a swim meet.
According to SwimSwam, 17-year-old Tehani Kealoha was swimming warm-down laps after a race in May 2023 when she suffered symptoms of cardiac arrest. Her mother, Jamie, was assisting timers on deck when she saw her daughter being pulled out of the water by another swimmer. Jamie said that no one knew what to do, and she began performing CPR on her daughter.
“You know, I remember, kneeling down and telling her to open her eyes, telling her to wake up, you know, not just not knowing what was happening,” Jamie recounted in a meeting with press.
In its lawsuit, the family alleges there was no lifeguard on duty or safety plan in place for the meet. The lawsuit also alleges that no CPR was initiated for the first five minutes, and that it took seven minutes to find the facility’s AED.
The family noted that three months after Tehani's death, her brother, Dustin, went into cardiac arrest while swimming three months later at a different pool. He reportedly had the same genetic defect that his sister had, but lifeguards and EMTs were able to save him.
“It was a group effort that saved Dustin,” Robert Miyashita, the family's lawyer, said. “Unfortunately, Tehani didn’t have a chance.”
