Earlier this year on February 27, 73-year-old Nancy Gillett drowned in a retention pond after leaving Bridgewater Healthcare Center on Carey Road in Carmel, Indiana. As a result, her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Hamilton County court “against a grocery store, developer, and healthcare center.” How did she drown, though?
Earlier this year on February 27, 73-year-old Nancy Gillett drowned in a retention pond after leaving Bridgewater Healthcare Center on Carey Road in Carmel, Indiana. As a result, her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Hamilton County court “against a grocery store, developer, and healthcare center.” How did she drown, though?
According to the lawsuit, Gillett “went missing in the early morning hours on February 27 after leaving the healthcare center, prompting a statewide Silver Alert.” Her Mitsubishi Eclipse was later recovered from a retention pond “on Carey Road just north of 146th street on March 6.” Her body was found inside the vehicle.
Indianapolis attorney Dan Chamberlain of Cohen and Malad filed the lawsuit earlier this month on behalf of Gillett’s children, Michael Arnett and Lara Wickliff. According to the suit, Gillett’s vehicle became trapped in the retention pond when she attempted to “exit Bridgewater Healthcare Center parking lot.” While trying to exit, she “steered her vehicle off the access road onto the retention pond embankment, plunged into the water and drowned.”
Both Arnett and Wickliff were on the scene when their mother’s body and vehicle was retrieved from the pond. As a result, both suffered “severe emotional distress,” according to the suit. As a result, Chamberlain filed the suit on their behalf against “Lakes Venture LLC, Fresh Thyme Farmers Market, Throgmartin-Henke Development, Lauth Group, Carey Leasing Co LLC and Bridgewater Healthcare Center,” alleging the defendants “owned, maintained, or controlled the commercial center including the access road and retention pond.” Additionally, the suit also alleges the “pond did not have proper signage or safety barriers to prevent someone from going into the pond.”
The lawsuit states:
“As a result of the defendant’s cumulative negligence, Nancy was killed…Defendants failed to do anything to protect the health, well being and care for persons of all ages. The retention pond and adjacent access roadway were unreasonably dangerous, without safety measures, guarding, or warnings of any kind on the particular portion where Nancy’s vehicle left the roadway, careened down the steep embankment and disappeared from sight or detection.”
Additionally, the suit also notes that the “parking lot lacked lighting, reflectors, lane paintings or demarcations, directional signage, curbing, gravel edging or transitional material, or barrier that served to warn of the road’s edge or prevent her vehicle from going into the water.”
At the moment, Arnett and Wickliff are seeking punitive damages “for the reckless, careless, willful and wanton misconduct on behalf of the Defendant’s cumulative failure to recognize the probable loss of life by its negligent design and maintenance of the property at issue,” according to the suit.
Sources:
Wrongful death lawsuit filed in pond drowning death of 73 year old mother
Lawsuit filed by family of woman who drove into retention pond
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