Police and Chicago Park District authorities Monday were investigating the death of a 9-year-old boy who drowned in a hole at a water park under construction.
Derrick Young, 9, of the 4800 block of W. Kamerling Avenue, was pronounced dead Sunday evening at West Suburban Hospital Medical Center in Oak Park.
Derrick and several other boys apparently climbed under a fence around the construction site,then jumped into the 15-foot-deep water-filled hole on a dare, said David Doig, general superintendent of the Chicago Park District.
Doig said the hole probably filled with water over the weekend after a pipe ruptured. He said the that the rupture is believed to have occurred on Friday afternoon but went undetected because it was a slow leak.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office has ruled the death a drowning.
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Doig said checks of the park on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon by park district staff and the Chicago Police Department did not show anything was wrong.
But some neighbors of LaFollette Park, at 1333 N. Laramie Ave., said they have called the park district recently to complain that the construction site was unattended and potentially dangerous to children.
In fact, Arlene Jones, president of the park’s advisory council, said the fencing at the park has been inadequate for years.
Hours after the accident, the gap between the fence and the ground below was mended.
Doig, however, said the park district has no record of residents complaining about the site.
“A fence is meant to deter people from getting in,” he said. “Is it failsafe? No.”
He said after the accident, the water connection to the site was turned off.