The parents of a 9-year-old boy struck by lighting last month in Austin, Tex. have filed a lawsuit against three soccer associations and the facility.
The boy, Alex Hermann, was struck on Aug. 26 at the Field of Dreams, part of a sports complex west of Austin. The lawsuit alleges that both the soccer associations and facility failed to meet basic standards for weather safety as well as warn of dangerous weather. Field of Dreams didn't have any lightning detection units in place, which would have been able to track lightning strikes within a predetermined radius of a facility.
The parents of a 9-year-old boy struck by lighting last month in Austin, Tex. have filed a lawsuit against three soccer associations and the facility.
The boy, Alex Hermann, was struck on Aug. 26 at the Field of Dreams, part of a sports complex west of Austin. The lawsuit alleges that both the soccer associations and facility failed to meet basic standards for weather safety as well as warn of dangerous weather. Field of Dreams didn't have any lightning detection units in place, which would have been able to track lightning strikes within a predetermined radius of a facility.
Local Austin news station KVUE reports that it wasn't raining at the time of the incident, and that the strike came appeared without warning.
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The family looks to claim more than $10 million in medical and emotional damages, as Hermann, according to the family's lawyer, remains in "a semi-vegitative state."
According to the family's attorney, Mark Levin, Hermann will require "around-the-clock care," and will potentially need his bedroom turned into a hospital room.
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Lightning strikes causing deaths hit an all-time low in the United States last year, with 23 fatalities. So far in 2014, there have been 23.
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