Posted On: September 27, 2007, 1:10 pm CDT

Posted By: John

Here is the article from the Cleveland Examiner that gives a few more facts:

Anne Arundel County (Map, News) - Surrounded by photographs of their dead son, the parents of Connor Freed, the 5-year-old Davidsonville boy who drowned in a Crofton pool last month, announced Thursday a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit against Crofton Country Club and its pool management company.

"He was the sweetest child," said Connor's father, Thomas Freed. An attorney for Freed and Debra Neagle Webber, Connor's mother, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court.

It alleges that Crofton Country Club failed to provide an adequate number of properly-trained lifeguards to monitor the pool where Connor drowned.

Wayne Rohauer, the manager of Crofton County Club, said he could not comment on pending litigation.

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On June 22 Connor was at the country club with family friend Paul Carroll, who was watching Connor and two of his own children at the pool, said the family's lawyer, H. Briggs Bedigian. At about 4:30 p.m., Carroll took off Connor's lifejacket so he could go to the bathroom, Bedigian said.

According to Bedigian, Carroll was watching his younger daughter in the pool and, after he hadn't seen Connor in a few minutes, sent his son to look for him in the bathroom.

When his son left, his daughter cried out that Connor was floating in the pool, Bedigian said.

Bedigian said women at the club helped Carroll drag Connor out of the pool, and that the lifeguards attempted to perform CPR. An ambulance transported Connor to a hospital, where he died about an hour after drowning.

Bedigian said the family doesn't hold Carroll responsible. "When we go to a pool with trained lifeguards we are under a reasonable belief that lifeguards will perform their duties," he said.

Thomas Freed said he is filing this lawsuit to attack complacency in lifeguards throughout the state.

"If one family is spared from the pain and anger and all the rest of what we are going though, his life will not be lived in vain," he said.