LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – A family from North Carolina is preparing to file a lawsuit against the Crowne Plaza in Lake Buena Vista, nearly a year after their young daughter drowned in one of the hotel’s pools.
“I’m standing here today not because I’m brave,” said Victoria Chen. “It’s just because I don’t have other choice.”
Clutching her daughter’s favorite toy, Chen told reporters that her daughter, 6-year-old Mia Xu, had a knack for dancing.
Chen, her husband and their two daughters arrived in Orlando on Dec. 27, 2024.
[WATCH: First responders share safety resources to keep children from drowning]
“I trusted that place to be safe for families,” Chen said through tears. “But it was not. And now my daughter is gone forever.”
Standing next to Chen at a press conference Thursday, attorneys Michael Haggard and Maegan Bridwell, of the Haggard Law Firm, signaled their intention to file a lawsuit against the hotel and any other parties they believe are “responsible for the dangerous conditions” that may have contributed to Mia’s death.
“The Xu family is here to do one thing: prevent this from ever happening again,” said Haggard, who is also a member of the board of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance. “Drownings are preventable.”
Haggard said that on the night the family arrived at the Crowne Plaza, Mia’s father took his daughters down to the pool area.
“Their dad is sitting only 10 feet from the pool in a lounge chair watching his children play with other children,” Haggard said. “[Mia’s sister] came up saying, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Mia is stuck at the bottom of the pool.’”
Haggard said that Mia’s father jumped into the pool to try to save her life. When he pulled her out, she was unresponsive.
Mia died at a hospital four days later, on New Year’s Eve.
While the lawsuit has not yet been filed, the attorneys telegraphed what they plan to allege negligence.
They claim that there was no attendant at the pool at the time. Haggard said there were signs in the area indicating otherwise.
The lawsuit will also allege that the slide, waterfall, and other water features in the pool where Mia drowned “created a continuous ripple effect across the surface, resulting in a chaotic visual distortion.”
“[The pool] had a unique feature that created a funnel, basically an undertow — a death trap for children,” Bridwell said.
News 6 has made attempts to reach management and ownership with Crowne Plaza, but we have not yet received a response.
[WATCH: Mother shares pool safety message after son’s near-drowning in Sanford]
“[Drowning] is something that happens over and over again in Florida,” Haggard said. “It is an absolute epidemic in the state of Florida with child drownings.”
From 2019 to 2021 combined, Florida was ranked the highest in the United States for unintentional drowning death rate among children ages one to four years old, according to the Florida Department of Health.
Chen said with families around the world planning on visiting Florida for the holidays, she wants to ensure other children are safe.
“This is not just a family tragedy,” Chen said. “This is a failure of the system.”
Haggard said he is also hoping that the legislature will work to enshrine industry standards into law.
For example, aquatic agencies, as well as the CDC, stipulate that qualified lifeguards should be on duty for pools that induce current or wave action and for pools with waterslides.
“There aren’t actual statutes dealing with water features at pools,” Haggard explained. “Pools change tremendously when you have slides, when you have water features, when you have waterfalls, because now the pool becomes almost like ocean-like, it starts to change.”