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The parents of Alaric Chiu, the 5-year-old boy who died March 28 in an unplanned kayaking incident, wept as they recalled the day they found out their young son had drowned.
Chiu’s father, Lucius, who was out of town at the time, wiped away tears as he recounted the devastating news from an emergency room doctor and the subsequent call he had to make to his wife, Kana Inubushi, who was unaware her child had died.
“I told her that Alaric isn’t coming home. Alaric died,” he said while closing his eyes. “She just kind of burst in tears. I called my mom cause she was worried as well, then she kind of … had a horrible reaction.”
Lucius Chiu spoke at a press conference Thursday at Bickerton Law Group, the law firm representing the family in its suit against Mid-Pacific Institute, where the kindergartner was attending a spring break program with his older brother, Tristan, who witnessed his little brother’s drowning from the beach.
The suit against the private school, as well as Mid-Pacific’s former extended- learning coordinator Puakailima Davis — the daughter and supervisor of Maria Davis, the 63-year-old staff member who also died in the kayaking incident — alleges reckless behavior and gross negligence on the part of school employees, which caused Chiu’s “untimely and horrific death from drowning.”
“Unbelievable tragedy that you can send your 5-year-old off to school — in this case to a day camp — and find out that he was taken off on a ride that you were never told about, put into an activity you never approved, placed at great risk and died before lunchtime,” said the family’s attorney Jim Bickerton, who is seeking damages to be determined by the court.
“We trusted the school with our son, but instead they killed him,” Lucius Chiu said in a news release issued by the law firm, which filed the complaint Thursday in 1st Circuit Court.
The father said his elder son is especially having a difficult time coping with the death of his brother.
“Tristan lost his playmate; they were very close to each other. They played together all the time. He’s having difficulty coping with the fact that he doesn’t have someone to play with anymore or someone to talk to close by,” Chiu said, adding that the boys, two years apart, shared a room together. “He’s trying to sleep on his own, but he’s not doing very well. He’ll have nightmares. … He’ll wake up in the middle of the night, and then he’ll come to our bedroom and ask to sleep next to us. Things have been very difficult. The house is a lot quieter. It’s just very hard. We are trying our best to live our lives day by day.”
The lawsuit also names Davis’ brother Kaehukaiopalemano, who was also on the field trip, and father, Wendell, the longtime kahu of Mid-Pacific. Richard and Melvianette Salgado, friends of the Davis family who lent them kayaks, also are named as defendants. Davis, who is now working as a dorm adviser for Kamehameha Schools, did not return calls for comment. Mid- Pacific spokeswoman Julie Funasaki Yuen said, “We are saddened by the loss of Alaric Chiu,” but declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The school fired Scott Siegfried, vice president of external affairs and enrollment, and Davis shortly after the incident. In an August letter welcoming families back to school, Mid-Pacific President Paul Turnbull said the school had hired a new director of compliance and risk management and would resume ocean-related field trips contingent upon new safety rules. Mid-Pacific also has hired a full-time lifeguard, and lifeguard- certified faculty members, with at least one lifeguard now required at all nonathletic swimming activities or events.
Despite the changes, Bickerton said that in discussions with Mid-Pacific before filing the suit, “it became clear that they do not acknowledge or understand the gravity of the problem and what it will take to set things right and make sure this never happens again.”
“Alaric died because Mid-Pacific and its counselors had no idea what they were doing,” he said, adding that Davis, her brother and mother were the only ones in charge of the day camp and did not have the proper training. “The school showed stupefying incompetence — hiring a team wholly lacking in both training and common sense and giving them no training or standards to follow. These were the people Mid- Pacific charged with taking care of vulnerable little children.”
Chiu was attending Mid- Pacific’s program when the coordinators took an “unplanned, unscheduled detour” to Kaaawa, where there were no lifeguards.
Despite the kindergartner’s inability to swim, Chiu and two other children were loaded into a two- person kayak with Maria Davis. None were wearing life vests required by state law. The kayak capsized, and two of the children were able to cling to the boat, while Davis and Chiu, who is estimated to have been underwater for at least 30 minutes, drowned.
“The Chius are left with an empty home,” said Robert Miyashita, Bickerton’s partner and co- counsel on the case. “A dark void and lifelong emptiness has been deeply carved into the Chiu family’s hearts. It can never be filled, but we hope to make sure it never happens to anyone else.”
Lawsuit against Mid-Pacific Institute by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd
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