Monsey, NY – A day camp was fined the maximum by the Board of Health today for failing to properly supervise a 12-year-old girl who left the camp unnoticed and was hit by a car and killed last summer.
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Rabbi Mitchell Chill, director of Camp LaRuach, housed at Beth Rochel School for Girls at 145 Saddle River Road, told the board that – contrary to what other camp staff said soon after the accident – there had been an adequate number of counselors on hand the day Leah Ausband was killed.
The girl, who turned 12 the day before she has died, left the camp at the end of the day without anyone noticing. She went to her brother’s house, then was attempting to get back to the camp when she walked in front of a van driven by a Spring Valley man. The van struck her and ran her over. The child, died soon after. No charges were filed against the driver.
At previous hearings, health department inspectors told the board that the girl’s mother said she warned camp staff the day before the accident that Leah might try to leave camp to visit her brother.
At today’s meeting, Rabbi Chill blamed the child for the accident that led to her death.
But inspector John Stoughton said that Wolper, the camp’s assistant director, told him the day after the accident – and several other times last summer – that only she and four other counselors were on duty at the time for the camp.
The Rabbi’s lawyer said that Wolper was too upset to attend the board meeting.
The board rejected the camp’s arguments and fined the camp the maximum allowed under the county’s health codes, $3,000. [The Journal News]
A tragedy it was.
The question the Court was seemingly asking, was whether it was “a tragedy waiting to happen”. By imposing the highest fine in their power, they answered that question loud and clear.
Perhaps our perception of how responsible a camp administration really is, is way below what it should be. From a legal standpoint, the Court gave it’s view.
If the camp doesn’t want to be achro’i on children why don’t they go into a different business?
Why do you think we send our children to camP instead of letting them roam the streetrs for two months every summer.
TO KEEP THEM SAFE!
you cant put barbed wire around an urban day camp.
the girl was 12, not 3.after the fact its easy to blame someone.how about blaming the driver?
or how about the parents who “warned the camp” she would try visiting her brother?
they should of warned their daughter!
the camp is only made liable because they have liability insurance.
Rabbi Chill feels terrible as it is. He’s the type of man who does anything for anyone-the whole camp is based on chessed. Why do you want him to get a bigger fine?It’s not like a bigger fine wil prevent this from hapening again. This was totally not the camp’s fault and it is somthing that happenned because Hashem wanted it to.
Rabbi Chill runs a safe and secure camp.
I wish I could say “Zuhl zayn a Kaporah”, but for only $3,000.00 for a Bas Yisroel????
What a tragedy!
If the maximum fine is only 3 grand why is the camp blaming the child? A little Kovod HaMes