For many families, packing up and taking the kids out for a camping adventure will remain a memory that lasts for years and years. Camping trips can become tradition, but that is unlikely if one trip turns tragic.

Two sets of plaintiffs have joined together to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Texas. They had gone on a group camping trip out of state and were met with devastation when the weather went terribly bad. Out of the 11 people who went camping with their group, only five returned to their Texas homes alive.

Some of the surviving parents of the surviving children who went on the 2010 camping trip to Arkansas filed their wrongful death case in Texas last month. Whereas the defendant in many civil suits tends to be a specific person, in this case, the accused are U.S. government agencies associated with the government-funded park.

The negligence suit alleges that the agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, didn't do enough to protect the park dwellers from potential injury or death. The campsite is located in a dangerous flood area and the families were not warned of the risk that they took on by camping out at the apparently dangerous location.

When wet weather poured down on what was supposed to be a pleasurable camping trip, the families' camp area became flooded, and lives were lost. The plaintiffs are suing on behalf of their children who are left to live with the emotional trauma of what happened and the loss of their loved ones.

Source

The Southeast Texas Record: "Tyler residents file wrongful death lawsuit over deadly Arkansas campsite flood," Michelle Keahey, Jan. 4, 2012