SF student claims water balloon injury
Lawsuit says teacher used slingshot device
SANTA FE — A former Santa Fe Prep student has filed a lawsuit against the school and a teacher alleging that a bone near his eye was fractured when the teacher used a slingshot-type device to launch a water balloon at him about three years ago.
Jackson Levy filed the complaint against Santa Fe Prep and teacher Nick Wirth in Santa Fe District Court on Friday. The incident happened on “Senior Fun Day” on Aug. 25, 2013, a Sunday.
The suit alleges that the slingshot was made by an unnamed teacher, apparently not Wirth, to shoot water balloons at students “more accurately and at higher velocity” and was being kept in the physics department.
The suit says the slingshot had been used before in 2012, and that a similar device was used to shoot a balloon that once gave a student minor injuries after the student was hit in the stomach. The lawsuit maintains that the school had “prohibited the use of the large slingshot device on the campus.”
“They should have known it was dangerous,” David Martinez, Levy’s lawyer, said in an interview Monday.
On Senior Fun Day, Levy, who attended Prep from seventh grade through senior year, was resting against a giant inflatable ball when Wirth used a slingshot made with two surgical tubes and a funnel to launch the balloon “at high speed, directly at (Levy’s) face,” according to the complaint. The balloon hit Levy in the right eye and caused him to fall to the ground.
The suit says Levy, then 17, suffered injuries that have resulted in medical expenses, pain and suffering and “temporary and probable permanent physical impairment.” Levy is asking the court to force the school and Wirth to pay punitive as well as compensatory damages to “punish the school” and deter it from similar conduct in the future.
Levy’s lawyer, Martinez, told the Journal Monday that Levy suffered a fractured right orbital and hyphema — a pooling of blood between the cornea and the iris — among other injuries that have increased Levy’s risk of going blind in that eye.
School headmaster Jim Leonard, who is named in the suit, could not be reached for comment Monday. The school’s website says Wirth, who also couldn’t be reached, is the history department chairman.