Summer camp shut down after boy, 5, drowns

Camp at nature center outside Atlanta is unlicensed program, officials says

CHATTAHOOCHEE HILLS, Ga. – Georgia officials are shutting down a summer camp outside Atlanta after a 5-year-old boy enrolled in the program died at the Cochran Mill Nature Center.

Reg Griffin, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, tells The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Camp Cricket Summer Day Camp in Chattahoochee Hills is an unlicensed program that was unknown to state officials until Monday. State officials ordered the camp to close.

He said the agency is investigating how Benjamin "Kamau" Hosch III died Friday at the nature center.

Cochran Mill board member Steve Hurwitz said Kamau and 12 other children ate lunch near a waterfall and were allowed to splash in a shallow adjacent creek.

Chattahoochee Hills City Manager Robert Rokovitz said Kamau was later found in a pool of water.

According to the family's attorneys, investigators told the boy's parents that the children were allowed to slide on the waterfall and swim, Fox5 in Atlanta reported after a news conference Monday.

The boy's parents said he couldn't swim and was missing for more than 45 minutes before he was found submerged in a small pond, Fox5 reports.

His parents are filing a lawsuit.

How are day camps regulated?

The American Camp Association keeps a record of all camps.

In Georgia, camps are regulated by the Georgia Department of Human Services, and day and residential camps do not require a license.

But educational camps through “Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning” require a license, unless they are exempt.

Bright from the Start would have required Camp Cricket to have a license, which it did not.

Parents can always ask a camp if it's licensed, but to double check, they can call:

  • Georgia Department of Human Services -- 1-800-436-7442

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