http://www.sltrib.com/2002/May/05292002/utah/740906.htmParents Sue Over Girl's Hiking Death
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
BY MICHAEL VIGH
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Last Christmas Day teen-ager Katherine Lank was hiking in southern Utah with two of her classmates from a school for troubled youths when she slipped and fell down a deep crevice.
Lank, 16, suffered massive head trauma and died three weeks later at a Las Vegas hospital. On Tuesday, her parents, Gregory and Moira Lank of South Carolina, filed a $6 million wrongful-death lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Red Rock Canyon School, based in St. George.
School officials violated several state regulations and failed "to take all reasonable measures to ensure the safety of Red Rock School students," according to allegations in the lawsuit, filed by St. George attorney Bryce Dixon.
The suit also says the hike was too difficult for inexperienced hikers and that there were an insufficient number of staff members to supervise it.
Because he had not seen the lawsuit, Red Rock executive director Abe Dalley declined to comment.
According to the school's Web site, Red Rock Canyon School is a state-licensed treatment facility for adolescents "with behavioral or emotional problems who require a level of structure and treatment beyond that which is available in traditional outpatient clinics, but who do not require inpatient psychiatric care."
The suit says that on Dec. 25, 2001, four staff members took 10 students on a hike through the Naming Caves in rural Washington County. During the hike, Lank and two other students were allowed to hike unsupervised, the suit claims.
A short time later, Lank was critically injured. She died on Jan. 13, 2002.
The lawsuit alleges that Dalley waited about an hour before calling an air ambulance. It was another 1 1/2 hours before the chopper arrived from University Medical Center in Las Vegas.
School officials should never have "taken a large group of students to a dangerous area" with only one radio and no medical equipment, the suit said.
"Management did not have a plan in place to efficiently handle emergencies or accidents," the suit states. "Because of the defendants' breaches of their duties, Katie Lank suffered extreme physical and mental pain, shock, agony and suffering prior to her death."
The suit, which accuses the school of negligence and breach of contract, asks for $5 million in compensatory damages, $1 million in punitive damages and attorney fees. The Lanks have also demanded a jury trial.
mvigh@sltrib.com