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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Haunted House Horror Story

ST. LOUIS (CN) - Artificial fog and smoke at a haunted house gave a 15-year-old girl anoxic brain injury and left her in a vegetative state, "paralyzed, speechless, [and] thoughtless," her mother claims in City Court.

Vanessa Neal says her daughter Brittney Holmes went to The Darkness haunted house on Halloween night 2009. There she was "exposed to various chemical components comprising artificial fog, smoke and scents," according to the complaint.

The mother says that "as a result of the aforementioned exposure" her daughter suffered "anoxic/hypoxic injury to the brain that has rendered her paralyzed, speechless, thoughtless, and in a generally vegetative state; that all of plaintiff's injuries are permanent, painful and progressive, and disabling".

Neal says she already has incurred $545,000 in medical bills and that her daughter will require life-long nursing, therapy and attendant care.

Neal seeks damages from Halloween Productions of St. Louis dba The Darkness.

She is represented by Michael Stokes with Devereaux, Stokes, Nolan, Fernandez & Leonard.

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