COUNTY TO PAY FOR BOY'S DEATH.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - A Los Angeles County board has recommended paying $125,000 to the parents of a teenager who died from a congenital heart ailment after collapsing at Challenger Memorial Youth Camp.

County attorneys faulted camp staff for failing to summon a doctor or send 16-year-old William Lee to a hospital when he passed out 11 days earlier while marching with other wards.

``The county is liable for the failure of its jail and medical staff to provide services consistent with the appropriate standard of care for the circumstances encountered, and the failure to provide a detained ward of the court immediate medical care for a serious medical condition,'' Owen L. Galagher, principal deputy county counsel, and attorney Kenneth Maranga said in a report.

The Los Angeles County Claims Board voted last week to recommend county supervisors pay $125,000 to settle the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed by the boy's parents, Michael Lee and Carla Anderson.

Before his arrest in August 2002, the boy had been receiving treatment at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles for a congenital condition called aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the heart's aortic valve. Congenital aortic stenosis puts individuals at risk of sudden death in physical activity.

At the juvenile probation camp, the boy was restricted to low-intensity recreational activity because of his condition, but on Nov. 25, 2002, he passed out while marching.

The boy was examined by camp nursing personnel and released from the camp infirmary.

Eleven days later, on Dec. 6, 2002, Lee was found lying unconscious in a camp recreation area. Staffers performed CPR on him and had him taken by ambulance to Antelope Valley Hospital, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com