August 26, 2008

Kim Gentry recently resigned as the Assistant Director of Courtesy for Port Royal. He says the drowning death of a 15 year old girl could have been prevented.

While in the office of attorney Bob Hilliard, Gentry apologized to the family of Toynelle Bailey. Mister Hilliard says Gentry recently contacted him, and later after resigning from Port Royal told Hilliard he needed to clear his conscious.

The Bailey family accepted the apology. They embraced. Everyone seemed to be fighting back tears.

Gentry was there back in May 2007 when 15 year old Toynelle Bailey drowned. He tried to save the young girl's life by doing CPR, but tells us the girl had likely been under for an hour or more before her body was pulled out.

He believes a combination of things could have saved the young girl's life. Gentry claims the resort needs lifeguards, and there needed to be a rope to separate the shallow end from the deep end.

He says there are slide guards but they are not lifeguards. Instead, Gentry says they are here from other countries on work visas who also work as housekeepers. He says slide guards are not given any training except to count to 10 before letting the next child go down the slide.

He recalled a week before Toynelle's death there was another near drowning. He says at that time he notified the resort's general manager that lifeguards and some kind of rope were needed.

We spoke to the general manager by phone who says he does not recall being notified of those concerns. He did tell us because there are two pending wrongful death suits against the resort, he is unable to speak as publicly about the case. He says the pool is now only 5 feet deep through out, and there are no lifeguards.

He referred us to the resort's attorneys who as of news time had not returned our phone calls.