Park Bench That Killed Boy, 8, Not Bolted to Ground

The concrete bench that toppled and killed an 8-year-old Laguna Niguel boy during a holiday YMCA outing was not secured to the ground and was like the benches other cities have removed in recent years because of safety concerns.

The 800-pound bench at Chapparosa Park was not bolted or glued as directed by the manufacturer. Officials in other communities that do have concrete benches said those are tightly secured to prevent accidents.

Anthony Ferris of Laguna Niguel, a third-grader at Hidden Hills Elementary School, was fatally injured Monday afternoon after the park bench that he and four other children sat atop flipped backward and rolled down an embankment, crushing him. Authorities said the other children jumped off in time.

The accident occurred two weeks before the YMCA’s program at Hidden Hills is scheduled to end a two-year probationary period imposed by state regulators because of complaints over lax supervision of children.

Dana Williamson, a supervisor with the state Department of Social Services, said the program has a “long history” of problems but has improved in recent years. He said the agency began an investigation Tuesday into Anthony’s death, but stressed there is no indication of wrongdoing.

Arthur Wannlund, president of the Orange County YMCA, defended the program’s overall safety record, which he described as “excellent.” He said past problems have been resolved and Monday’s outing was well-supervised, with one adult for every four children.

Wannlund said everything he had heard so far about the death seemed to point to a “freak accident.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the YMCA said the boys were seated on the bench back as YMCA workers took attendance for a planned Martin Luther King Jr. holiday barbecue.

Sheriff’s investigators told city workers that it took five YMCA employees to pull the bench off Anthony, who suffered severe head and leg injuries. He died at a nearby hospital about 30 minutes later.

City officials acknowledged Tuesday that the bench was not secured to the ground but said that the park’s plans do not specify that it needed to be.

After the accident, officials immediately began checking other benches, and found that the two at the accident site were the only ones in the park system not secured, said City Manager Tim Casey. Several concrete bus benches in the city aren’t bolted or glued, and officials are checking with the manufacturer to see if they should be.

Neighboring Orange County cities use concrete benches in their parks, including some made by the manufacturer of the one involved in the accident, Fontana-based Dura Art Stone. But those officials stressed that their benches are bolted or glued to the ground.

“The bench is designed to be anchored,” said Tom Seifert, president of Dura Art Stone. “On our detail drawings, in our catalog, it says [the bench] should be anchored down.”

Increasingly, communities are replacing heavy concrete benches with lighter aluminum or plastic ones because of safety concerns.

San Juan Capistrano removed all but three concrete benches from its parks, in part because they tended to tip over.

In Dana Point, which replaced its concrete benches, Public Works Director Bob Warren said he was surprised to hear that the one in Laguna Niguel wasn’t bolted.

“To me, something like that doesn’t look stable on its own,” Warren said. “I’m very, very surprised it wasn’t bolted down, because most agencies are aware of liabilities and are conscientious in making sure parks are safe. You would think they would have noticed it wasn’t secure.”

Chapparosa Park was developed in 1989 by the Brea-based Shea Homes Southern California, which built the surrounding neighborhood of homes as well, city officials said. The park was taken over by the city after its 1990 incorporation.

Shea Homes Southern California issued a brief statement saying that it is investigating the incident and declined to answer other questions.

As school let out Tuesday, parents and classmates of Anthony made a pilgrimage to the park, where flowers and cards were delivered.

Laguna Niguel Mayor Mark Goodman said Anthony “was on my youngest boy’s soccer team. This really hits close to home. We’re sick about it. . . . But the only thing I can say is that we’ll investigate why it wasn’t secured.”

Gabriella Moody, 28, who ran the program for South Coast YMCA, recalled Anthony as an intellectual child with often surprising insights.

“He could just read adults very well,” she said. “He was much older than his years, a lot older, but he was still a kid.”

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Times staff writers Megan Garvey, Richard Marosi and Peter M. Warren and correspondents Jason Kandel and Jason Leopold contributed to this report.