Smugglers’ Notch Resort drowning death: Parents of boy ready to sue ‘potentially liable parties’
January 26, 2024 | By Charlotte Oliver | Community News Service
The parents of the 3-year-old who drowned at Smugglers’ Notch Resort last summer are prepared to sue “potentially liable parties,” says their lawyer, including the manufacturer of the lid that should have prevented Tate Holtzman from falling into a 3,500-gallon cistern last July.
“This was a preventable tragedy caused by an incredibly dangerous product lacking certain available safety features, made all the more dangerous by its improper installation and lack of warning,” family attorney Jennifer Denker told Community News Service via email last week.
“The product was sold without an available safety feature that would have saved Tate’s life,” she said.
Her comments are some of the latest developments in a saga that began July 6, 2023, when the boy fell into a small, 2-foot-wide bottleneck leading to the underground water tank while attending a resort day camp. Lifeguards rescued Holtzman, but he died a few days after the incident.
The lid Holtzman fell through was supposed to be marked with danger signs and held in place with bolts, but Smugglers’ Notch failed on both fronts, according to a Vermont Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation this past fall.
Those findings, and the resort’s subsequent labor safety fines, were first revealed by Community News Service in an article earlier this month. The article also revealed details from a lifeguard on duty that day who, speaking anonymously, told a reporter that staff believed the lid was left loose.
Vermont State Police announced last week that troopers had finished an investigation into the incident and that no criminal charges would be filed.
Records from that police inquiry, obtained by Community News Service, describe in detail how Holtzman ended up in the water tank — and offer another confirmation that the tank’s lid was never bolted down like it should’ve been.
The afternoon Tate drowned, he fell and scraped his knee when his camp group got to the resort’s Notchville waterpark, according to police documents obtained through a records request. Counselors walked him to a picnic table near the waterpark’s splash pad to clean his leg, the records say, before telling him to join other campers on the splash pad.
At first he started walking in the wrong direction, police records say, then counselors verbally redirected him.
Counselors told state police they saw Holtzman take a step when the lid to the cistern “flipped in the air.” Tate had “disappeared into the hole,” records say. They had never noticed it before, they told police.
Lifeguards alternated rescue attempts for eight to 10 minutes, only able to stay in the basin for 15 to 20 seconds at a time given the depth of the water, according to police.
“These types of plastic covers are designed to be screwed shut; however, for some reason, the cover was not secured with any screws and was simply sitting on top of the riser which led to the water tank,” police records say.
Smugglers’ Notch CEO Lisa Howe, in an interview with Community News Service for the story earlier this month, said, “We’ll never know why the bolts weren’t in the place where there were holes for the bolts.”
Employees who worked on the tank weren’t sure why the cover was missing the proper bolts — and weren’t sure the lid ever had bolts, according to the workplace safety investigation.
The resort was fined about $31,000 in October for six labor safety violations regarding employee work in the tank — all classified as “serious,” records show. The resort negotiated and paid a lower fine of about $22,000 in November after adding danger signage and changing employee procedure.
The Vermont Department for Children and Families, which oversees licensed daycare providers, conducted its own investigation of the resort’s childcare services following the incident and found no violations, according to records obtained via a public records request.
The Holtzmans’ lawyer, Denker, left open the possibility of pursuing legal action. The parents, Jennifer and Zachary, want to ensure “no other family is subjected to the tortuous loss of a child due to unsecured water tanks or septic systems,” said Denker.
The boy’s father, Zachary, worked for Smugglers’ Notch at the time of the incident, according to a statement the family gave state police to distribute in the agency’s Jan. 9 press release.
“(Tate) and our entire family also love Smugglers’ Notch, which is why we live locally,” the parents said in the statement.
Denker said her clients would prefer to resolve the matter outside the courtroom. A petition to replace the resort’s splash pad with a memorial garden in honor of Tate had, as of Jan.18, gathered just over 1,000 signatures.
“Tate was the love of our lives, a very special young soul full of compassion, kindness, curiosity, creativity and adventure,” the boy’s parents said in their statement. “He was our only child — and like both of us, he loved to ski, ride his bike and canoe.”
The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.