Family of boy who nearly died in stormwater culvert files lawsuit

RADNOR >> On a summer day in 2011 a 12-year-old boy was playing in his friend’s backyard near the Ithan Creek that had swollen from a recent rainstorm.

The boy, Logan Schweiter, was attracted to a pool of water created by the Aberdeen Avenue culvert, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on Oct. 5 naming Radnor Township as the defendant. Logan fell into the pool and was swept into the Aberdeen Avenue culvert where he was pulled completely underwater into an underground drainage pipe for about a half mile, according to the lawsuit. He was found unconscious in the Ithan Creek behind 403 Meadowbrook Road about a half mile from where he’d entered the water.

Logan was resuscitated and transported to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia but as a result of his near-drowning, he was deprived of oxygen, suffered a cardiac arrest, pulmonary edema, aspiration pneumonia, seizures and profound brain damage, the suit said. Diagnosed with severe hypoxic encephalopathy, Logan is in a near-vegetative state and suffers from permanent physical and mental injuries, according to the suit. He requires 24-hour a day nursing and custodial care.

In the lawsuit, parents Melissa Schweiter and Martin Schweiter, along with Logan, claim that Radnor Township violated Logan’s civil rights by building the stormwater culvert on Aberdeen Avenue, near St. Katherine of Siena School and Radnor Middle School.

The Schweiters demand more than $150,000, along with court fees, costs and interest.

Radnor Township officials did not respond to a request for comment.

“For over 40 years, the defendant, Township of Radnor, was aware that when the Aberdeen Avenue culvert flooded, children played in and around the large pool of water created by the culvert flooding, the suit claims. At all times the culvert was owned, maintained and under the control of the township.

Also, township officials knew there was a threatening condition at the culvert, the suit claims. Stormwater management studies in 1973, 1975, 1980, 1992, 1994, 2000, 2005 and 2011 had recommended improvements for safety at the culvert yet Radnor “chose to ignore these recommendations,” the suit states.

For more than 40 years, Radnor officials were “aware that children who played at the culvert would have no way of apprehending the pool of water created by the flooding would cause them to be violently drawn into the water and underground into the culvert and into a system of pipes, the suit states.

The danger of the culvert was “foreseeable and direct,” the suit alleges. By creating the danger, Radnor “acted with deliberate indifference for the safety of Logan,” the suit claims.

The actions of the township in constructing the culvert and pipe system “caused Logan to nearly drown in the Ithan Creek leaving him brain dead, thereby violating his constitutionally protected rights to life and bodily integrity,” according to the lawsuit. The township allegedly acted with “maliciously and/or with deliberate and/or reckless indifference” toward Logan, the suit contends.

For more than 40 years, Radnor officials were “aware that children who played at the culvert would have no way of apprehending the pool of water created by the flooding would cause them to be violently drawn into the water and underground into the culvert and into a system of pipes, the suit states.