A federal judge has dismissed a family’s wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Lewiston and the state over a seventh-grader’s drowning last summer.
The Lewiston Sun Journal reports that Judge Lance Walker wrote in his decision that claims of “deliberate indifference” on part of school chaperones and state employees are speculative and do not suggest actions to “deprive [Rayan] Issa of his life.”
The lawsuit was filed against the city of Lewiston, Lewiston School Department and the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry in U.S. District Court in April by Ali Abdisamad, the father of 13-year-old Rayan Issa who drowned while on a school field trip at Range Pond State Park in Poland on June 12, 2018, according to the Sun Journal.
The lawsuit claimed that school and state employees were responsible for Issa’s death, saying they failed to follow safety protocols, the newspaper reports. It sought financial damages for medical and funeral costs and the family’s suffering.
On June 12, 2018, 111 students and 11 chaperones employed by the school department were at Range Pond State Park, where one lifeguard was on duty. Issa was passing a football in the water with friends when he went under, according to the newspaper.
When no one could find him, the lifeguard reportedly did not know what to do in the situation, the Sun Journal reports. Rescuers later found Issa and brought him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
An attorney for the family told the newspaper that he intends to appeal the decision.