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ROCK HILL A York County, S.C., jury on Friday awarded $4.7 million to the family of a former Fort Mill High School student left paralyzed in a climbing wall accident.
Larry Keeter suffered a fractured spine when he fell 20 feet to the ground during a Spring Fling field day in May 2006. Doctors have told him he might never walk again.
Keeter's family filed a lawsuit against the N.C.-based company that installed the climbing wall. Friday's verdict delivered long-awaited relief to Keeter and his parents, who voiced hope that it would lead to improved safety conditions at similar climbing walls across the country.
“Hating somebody is not going to get me up and walking,” Keeter said. “The best thing I can do is help people realize there's a change that's needed to prevent this from happening again.”
The tower company, Alpine Towers International of Pineola, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Now 20, Keeter uses a wheelchair. Every day, he says, his mind flashes back to the accident.
Then a senior, Keeter had ascended the 50-foot climbing wall and was rappelling down while strapped inside a harness.
A student on the ground acting as a “belayer” lost her grip on the rope, and Keeter plummeted 20 feet, landing on his feet and then crumpling to the ground, the lawsuit states.
The impact sent a shock up his back and fractured his spine, shattering one vertebrae.
Doctors at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte removed bone fragments from Keeter's spinal canal and realigned his spine. They put eight bolts and two metal rods in his back.
Keeter's family brought in Columbia attorney Dick Harpootlian to pursue a lawsuit against Alpine Towers, which had installed the tower after it was donated by Carowinds.
Harpootlian cited faulty design, saying the equipment lacked an automatic locking device that could have prevented Keeter's fall. The suit also said Alpine did not adequately train Fort Mill High School faculty members.
“You don't put kids in a position where their lives literally hang in the balance based on the attentiveness of other kids,” Harpootlian said Friday. “That is what our experts hammered.”
Harpootlian said he expects Alpine to appeal.
Fort Mill officials took down the climbing wall soon after the accident. Alpine installed the tower and trained school officials on how to use it, according to the lawsuit.
There are at least 11 Alpine towers in South Carolina and nearly 240 around the world, according to published reports. A 10-year safety report published in 1999 concluded that tower users reported 176 minor accidents and 18 serious accidents.
After Keeter's accident, some tower operators said they would re-evaluate their safety methods.
Keeter has made progress over the past three years.
He lives in a handicapped accessible apartment near the Rock Hill Galleria.
He earned a computer certification from York Technical College, but hasn't found steady work.
The jury's decision brought closure to a long ordeal, but Keeter was in no mood to celebrate.
Asked what he planned to do next, Keeter said he just wanted to go home and take a nap.
