‘HORRIFYING’

Family Sues Chicago Navy Pier After 8-Year-Old Plummets Off Climbing Wall

The 8-year-old fell after being placed in a harness that wasn’t properly secured to a rope by operators at Chicago’s Navy Pier, the complaint alleges.

A Michigan family is suing Chicago’s premier waterfront tourist destination, accusing its employees of negligence after their 8-year-old son was seriously injured after falling from the top of a rock-climbing wall there. The boy, George Brewer, plummeted off the 24-foot wall at Navy Pier in July in a heart-stopping moment that was caught on camera. His parents allege that pier workers failed to properly secure his harness to a safety rope and did not offer assistance to him or his panicked relatives in the moments after he landed on the concrete below. “It was horrifying, and I did not keep it together,” Erin Brewer, George’s mother, told CBS Chicago. “I was absolutely hysterical.” Brewer was rushed to a hospital for emergency treatment. Having undergone four surgeries so far—with at least one more scheduled for January—the child has recovered his ability to walk, with the assistance of a walker, after two months in a wheelchair. The Brewers’ 10-count lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 in damages.