The occasion was a Batchelder family reunion on Lake Burton, a 2,775 acre-reservoir in Georgia’s Northeast corner. Ryan was one of a party of six that included his uncle, Darin Batchelder, his brother Josh, and his first cousins, Kayla and Zack, in a rented 20-foot Malibu Response LX Bowrider. That Thursday evening, the children were seated in the bow of the boat, with great uncle Dennis Ficarra at the helm, and Darin in the adjacent port seat.
Ficarra was navigating the Bowrider across its own wake at less than 10 mph, when the bow dipped under wave, immediately swamping the boat. Josh and Kayla scrambled over and through the narrow opening of the windshield into the cockpit, Zack jumped out of the sinking boat and Ryan and the seat he was sitting on was washed overboard; Ficarra attempted to halt the sinking by throwing the boat into reverse. Zach, Josh and Kayla were able to climb through the narrow windshield opening into the cockpit of the boat.
Ryan, however, became entangled and lodged in the propeller rudder and driveshaft, which severely lacerated his body and amputated his leg. He died from drowning and massive blood loss. With Ryan’s body wedged in the vessel’s mechanism, the boat was disabled, and the Batchelder family had to wait for help to arrive as the water filled with blood. Ultimately, the boat had to be towed to shore and lifted out of the lake for rescue personnel to untangle the young boy’s body from the propeller.
Ryan’s parents, Steven and Meg Batchelder wanted their funny, fearless youngest son to be remembered for two of his fondest ambitions: to own a million stuffed animals and to become Santa Claus. They combined them in the founding of the Ryan Batchelder Foundation, also known as Little Hugs. The organization donates new stuffed animals to children who need comfort, providing more than 3,000 of them to impoverished children in the Caribbean and Latin America.
The Batchelders also want another legacy for Ryan: safer boats. In a civil lawsuit filed in the state Superior Court of Rabun County, the Batchelders allege that the Malibu Bowrider was defective and that the manufacturer was negligent in designing a boat that when used as intended, the weight of occupants in the bow rendered it vulnerable to swamping. The Batchelders allege that Malibu failed to adequately test the Bowrider as it was likely to be used – indeed as it was marketed. Finally, the complaint alleges that Malibu failed to warn its customers about the unsafe nature of the boat.
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