Parents sue trade school where son was fatally shocked

The parents of a freshman who was fatally shocked last year at a Delaware County trade school sued the school this week.

Laurie and Michael Savage Sr. of Glenolden said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that their son, Michael Jr., 18, had not been properly trained or supervised and had not had the proper equipment when he was sent to work on an energized commercial light fixture at the power plant on the campus of the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades on Oct. 9, 2009.

Savage and another student had removed old wiring from the fixture and replaced it with a type of metal cable, but when he attempted to plug the light fixture into a portable cord reel, he was shocked, according to the suit.

The lawsuit also named General Electric, the manufacturer of the light fixture, arguing that the fixture was "defective and unreasonably dangerous when it was sold."

The suit also alleges that the school, in Media, failed to provide fundamental first-aid training and defibrillators.

And Savage - who was a high-achieving Academy Park High School graduate who had played football and baseball, was a former altar boy, and wanted to be an electrician - wasn't provided safety equipment, including electrical-testing equipment and safety gloves, the suit said.

"A simple ground fault circuit interrupter would have tripped and locked out the circuit before enough current flowed to interfere with Michael's beating heart and caused him to be painfully unable to release from the circuit," the suit said.

"This kid laid on the floor convulsing because nobody had CPR and they didn't have a defibrillator," said the Savages' attorney, Thomas Sheridan.

The family filed the lawsuit "to get answers," because, Sherman said, the school won't talk with them about what happened. Guy Gardiner, president of Williamson, said yesterday that he was "not at liberty to make any comments about the case."

The suit, which seeks in excess of $50,000 in damages, contends Williamson was using students to perform maintenance to save money.