Town to pay parents $15 million after death of their 13-year-old who drowned at summer camp

A town is to pay a parents $15million after the death of their 13-year-old who drowned at summer camp.

On July 15, 2022, 13-year-old Darrell "DJ" McCutcheon Jr. vanished under the waters of Florence Lake on Anderson Island just southwest of Seattle , Pierre County court records obtained by ABC News revealed.

A camp employee had allegedly left the teen and his peers at the lake as he went to pick up another group of children and a co-worker at a nearby ferry station. During that time, the 13-year-old boy, who had reportedly never swum in open water before and who wasn't wearing a life jacket, went underwater for approximately six minutes.

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That's how long it took bystanders to notice his predicament and attempt to rescue him, pulling him from the water and performing CPR on him. He was subsequently flown to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead that same day, court records revealed.

"If he was adequately and properly supervised as part of the summer camp group, ... that boy would not have died," bystander Earnest Roberts, who had been walking on the beach at the time the boy began to drown, said, according to the court records.

It had been Roberts who first spotted the boy in around 10 feet of water, swam out and pulled him to the surface, albeit too late — the boy was already too far gone.

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Shortly after the incident, Tamicia and Darrell McCutcheon Sr. sued the town for negligence, with one of their lawyers, Brett Rosen, telling The Seattle Times , "The most important thing for them is to never have this happen to another child."

He added that the town of Steilacoom, located just southwest of Tacoma about 44 miles south of Seattle, eventually agreed to pay $15 million to settle the lawsuit in April — but it was an arduous journey toward that point.

The town sought to dismiss the couple's lawsuit in January, stating that Tamicia had signed a waiver that accepted risks related to participation in the summer camp, including injury or death related to participating in activities in or near the water.

But Rosen and the rest of the couple's legal team argued that the town never specified any situations in which the children would be brought to open water. They also noted that camp employees had planned the outing to the lake knowing that they would have to transport the campers in two groups, which meant one had to be left near the water.

That decision, the couple's legal team argued, violated a town policy in the staff's training manual that says campers "must be under the supervision of a staff person at all times during program hours," court records said.

The Seattle Times contacted Steilacoom Administrator Paul Loveless and the town's attorney, Amanda Kuehn, but both declined to speak with the newspaper, citing ongoing litigation — the final dismissal paperwork hadn't yet been filed.

Now, the McCutcheons are reportedly planning to use the payout to start a nonprofit dedicated to promoting aquatic safety at summer camps and to create scholarships in their son's name, Rosen told the publication.