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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Dad Blames Haunted House for Girl’s Death

ST. LOUIS (CN) - Chemical smoke and fog at a haunted house triggered an asthma attack that killed a teen-ager, her father claims in City Court. Brittney Holmes, 15, died on Nov. 14, a little more than a year after visiting The Darkness haunted house on Halloween night 2009.

Her father, Durand Tyler, says Brittney suffered anoxic/hypoxic brain injury that left her in a vegetative state for a year until she died.

Tyler says the chemicals the haunted house used triggered an asthma attack the caused her daughter's injuries and eventual death.

Tyler claims Halloween Productions, which operated the haunted house, failed to warn "of the existence and their exposure to the aforementioned chemicals."

But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the haunted house had posted several signs warning people with respiratory problems not to enter.

Holmes had suffered from asthma since she was four.

Tyler says he has incurred more than $500,000 in medical bills for his daughter's care.

He is seeking actual and punitive damages and is represented by Samuel Wendt of Wendt Goss in Kansas City.

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