ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) – Tybee Island, the easternmost point in Georgia, should not be liable for the drowning death of a 17-year-old who was trying to rescue a friend.
On Feb. 24, the Georgia Court of Appeals made that ruling in a lawsuit over the death of Je-Aarian Belin. His parents sued the City of Tybee Island, which in turn successfully argued the Recreational Property Act shielded it from liability.
The decision affirmed a trial court’s summary judgment ruling that also found Belin assumed risk and that the rescue and public duty doctrines did not apply.
Belin’s parents sought to argue firefighter/lifeguard Tudor Negrea, who was instructed to advise responding lifeguards as to the location of Belin and McKenna Smith, was negligent.
“Here, based on the photographs contained in the record, Negrea was not close enough to stop Belin from going back for Smith and to instead make him come to shore,” Judge Sara Doyle wrote.
“Certainly, had Negrea entered the water then he would have had two individuals to attempt to keep afloat and out of the rapid current until the jet ski rescuers arrived. This evidence is simply too speculative — whether based on the photographs, eyewitness testimony, or expert affidavit — to constitute a question of fact for the jury.”
Belin, Smith and Richard Summers were part of a group of teenagers visiting a beach in an area called Back River. The three walked out to a sandbar during low tide, which kept the water at waist-deep.
But the tide came in, forcing the three to try to get back to the beach in shoulder-deep water while fighting against the Back River current. An onlooker saw their struggles and called for help.
Negrea continued to watch from the beach in order to advise rescuers on watercraft. Summers and Belin made it back to the shore, but Belin saw Smith losing her fight. He went back to help, but “he was swept underwater and drowned,” the opinion says. His body wasn’t found for four days.
The onlooker who called for help took some 50 pictures and testified she thought if Negrea had entered the water earlier, Belin’s death would have been prevented.
The City argued Belin assumed the risk of his injuries and that the rescue doctrine exception didn’t apply because of that assumption of risk. The trial judge agreed, rejecting arguments Belin did not assume the risk voluntarily because he was forced into action by the lifeguard’s inaction.
“Neither the City nor Negrea caused any of the teens to be in the water,” Judge Doyle wrote.