The grieving family of a 10-year-old girl who passed away after being sucked into an irrigation pipe while swimming in a man-made pond have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Cave B Estate Winery.
According to reports, Danika Ross was swimming in the pond with her siblings when she was sucked into the pipe at the pond in Quincy, which is owned by the winery.
After being pulled in, the young girl was “thrust down into a 90-degree bend in the pipe” before her body was “transported nearly 70 feet up the hill via the mechanical pump mechanism,” the suit claims.
The complaint describes Danika’s death as “painful, gruesome, terrifying, and senseless.”
Two of her siblings saw the heartbreaking incident and tried to help but they could not fight the suction.
The Grant County Coroner’s office concluded that the 10-year-old died of asphyxiation from drowning.
The suit also claims that the Cave B website advertises swimming in the lake, and calls it ‘literally a death trap,’ KREM reported.
The heartbroken family claims that Danika’s death was caused by the winery’s negligence, and alleges they failed to put any warnings indicating the hidden dangers at the area.
Danika’s mother, Margarita, told KREM: “It’s difficult to imagine your child’s death.
“But to hear how it actually happened, and thinking what she went through in the last moments of life, makes it way more horrible.”
Danika’s father, Simon Ross, said that the tragedy has left his children traumatized and left all of them heartbroken.
“It’s like a huge void that cannot be filled,” he expressed.
“There is no hope. Like, every day you think it might become a little bit easier, but it’s not,” Margarita added.
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