Lawsuit filed against City of Sidney

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SIDNEY — A lawsuit was filed against the City of Sidney and the Ohio Department of Medicaid in the Shelby County Commons Pleas Court on Aug. 24.

Angel Linton, mother of a minor child who was entrapped in an underground water culvert on Sept. 1, 2015, at Sidney’s Harmon Park, has filed a lawsuit for negligence. The child, who was 11-years-old at the time of the incident, was seriously injured while attempting to retrieve a football while playing at the park’s playground.

According to the civil complaint filed, the child was sucked into the underground water culvert and was entrapped for over two hundred feet before exiting, after nearly drowning as it was almost completely full of water.

The lawsuit claims the City of Sidney, “failed to exercise ordinary care when it designed, planned, constructed the above and underground culvert located at Harmon Park, which, due to its defective and unsafe condition, was permitted to exist at said park, without supervision by the city’s agents, servants, or employees.”

The complaint lists the child’s bodily injuries as including facial lacerations, head injuries, chest contusions, battered and bruised. As a result of nearly drowning, “due to the depth and the force of the moving water through the culvert system,” it resulted “in severe mental and emotional distress in the past and (the child) continues to suffer severe mental anguish and emotional distress presently and will do so in the future.”

According to the complaint, the plaintiff has incurred more than $3,000 in medical expenses, and will incur future medical expenses, as well. The plaintiff is seeking a sum in excess of $25,000, plus medical expenses, interest, and other relief.

The matter was brought up at the Sidney City Council meeting Tuesday night by the city’s Law Director Jeffrey Amick. He said it was being handled by the city’s insurance provider.

The water culvert at Harmon Park
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2016/09/web1_Waterculver.jpgThe water culvert at Harmon Park
City blamed for entrapment of child

By Sheryl Roadcap

[email protected]

Reach the writer at 937-538-4823.

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