Dad drowned while saving kids. Businesses disregarded his safety for profit, suit says
The wife of a man who drowned in Atlantic Beach in July 2024 has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against three Myrtle Beach area businesses.
The lawsuit claims that the businesses have been operating under a dual-role lifeguarding model in order to gain additional profit while endangering the public’s safety.
The lawsuit, which was filed on July 9, comes almost two years after 43-year-old Michael Boddie drowned in Atlantic Beach after saving his two sons from a rip current. Boddie’s wife, Wilma, claims that the lifeguards working neglected to perform their duties that would have helped save his life.
But the lawsuit says that the case “is not merely about the negligence of one lifeguard on one afternoon.”
Wilma Boddie’s lawsuit names Lewis LLC; its two businesses, New Wave Watersports and Atlantic Watersports; the LLC’s owner Aaron Lewis; Atlantic Beach Services and its owners Bryan Pearson and Jennifer Pearson. The lawsuit claims that each of the parties have endangered the public’s safety by privately having its lifeguards also provide commercial services while working.
That type of model alleged in the lawsuit falls under what’s commonly known as dual role lifeguarding — a practice that the City of Myrtle Beach prohibited following a 2022 lawsuit in which a beach service company was found liable for the drowning of a 41-year-old in Myrtle Beach and had to pay $20.73 million in damages to the man’s estate.
Wilma Boddie’s lawsuit claims that while the business under Lewis LLC and Atlantic Beach Services publicly appear to be separate entities, they were all allegedly controlled by the same owner, Lewis, and had employees working across all the businesses.
The City of North Myrtle Beach and the Town of Atlantic Beach are also named as defendants in the lawsuit. Wilma Boddie is accusing the municipalities of negligence.
City of North Myrtle Beach spokesperson Lauren Jessie told The Sun News that the city does not comment on pending litigation.
In an email to The Sun News, Atlantic Beach Services co-owner Jennifer Pearson wrote that the company’s role “was limited to renting beach chairs and umbrellas during a single season.”
“We did not provide lifeguard services or any other beach safety services,” she said.
The City of North Myrtle Beach declined to comment. Aaron Lewis and the Town of Atlantic Beach did not respond to The Sun News’ request for comment on the lawsuit.
Wilma Boddie is seeking punitive and actual damages to be determined by a jury.
“A man is dead because these Defendants prioritized profits over public safety, and then tried to hide behind a corporate shell game when the industry was put on notice that this business model kills people,” the lawsuit states.
Michael Boddie’s drowning
Wilma and Michael Boddie had traveled to Atlantic Beach on July 13, 2024, with their three children to celebrate the kids’ academic accomplishments, according to the lawsuit.
Around noon, the family arrived at the beach and set up their towels and an umbrella within a few feet of one of Atlantic Beach’s lifeguard towers.
The family was getting ready to leave around 3:50 p.m. when Boddies’ two youngest children went to rinse off in the water, according to the lawsuit. A rip current began to pull the boys out to sea, and Michael Boddie ran into the water to reach his sons. The lifeguard closest to the Boddie family on Atlantic Beach got the two sons from the father and brought them to shore.
Michael Boddie, who was still in the water, began to drown and was “screaming for help” while “flailing his arms,” according to the lawsuit. The lifeguard who brought the sons ashore allegedly did not make any attempt to rescue Michae Boddie, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that he was not rescued until a lifeguard in North Myrtle Beach saw that he was drowning and came over to rescue him.
Atlantic Beach borders North Myrtle Beach on either side of the historic Black beach.
Michael Boddie was unconscious when he was pulled out of the water and later died at Grand Strand Medical Center, according to the lawsuit.
Suit claims 'restructuring scheme’
Beginning in 2004, the Town of Atlantic Beach contracted Atlantic Watersports Inc. to provide lifeguarding services.
Like other beaches in the Grand Strand, the Town of Atlantic Beach has contracts with franchise companies that provide lifeguards. The lawsuit describes Atlantic Watersports Inc. as having been a “one-stop shop” in which the business provided lifeguard operations, commercial beach operations and beach chair and umbrella rentals.
The company filed to dissolve itself in 2023 — about six months after a jury found that Lack’s Beach Service’s dual role system in Myrtle Beach was inherently dangerous and required the business to pay $20.7 million in damages. In 2016, the United States Lifesaving Association wrote to the City of Myrtle Beach to warn that the practice was “unreliable” and that it would not certify any beach lifeguard agency that assigns lifeguards to a dual role.
Lewis had acquired the business in 2021, but later asked the Town of Atlantic Beach for permission to move the franchise under his corporate LLC, where he planned on using the name “Atlantic Watersports,” the lawsuit claims.
Lewis’ acquisition of the business and its dissolution wasn’t the end of its operations, the lawsuit claims. Instead, “it was the beginning of a corporate restructuring scheme designed to separate, on paper, the profitable commercial operations from the liability-bearing lifeguard operations,” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit alleges that after Atlantic Watersports Inc. dissolved, the entity’s operations “reappeared under multiple names, all controlled by Defendant Aaron Lewis.”
Those new entities included Atlantic Watersports, which was responsible for providing lifeguards, and New Wave Watersports, which provided “primary-revenue-generating activities” such as parasailing, the lawsuit claims.
Who was there during drowning?
The day of Michael Boddie’s drowning, Atlantic Beach Services, which is owned by the Pearsons, had been commercially operating on Atlantic Beach. The business was contracted to provide beach chair and umbrella rental services, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit claims that Atlantic Beach Services’ equipment and personnel “were co-located with the lifeguard function that morning and afternoon,” and that a vehicle with “Atlantic Watersports” markings had also been used interchangeably for “commercial rental and lifeguard operations.”
Bryan Pearson had been working at the New Wave Watersports location when the drowning occurred, according to the lawsuit. He later appeared at Atlantic Beach to relieve the lifeguard who was working during Michael Boddie’s drowning.
Jennifer Pearson in a statement to The Sun News wrote that they were not present during the incident. She declined to comment on the specific allegations contained in the lawsuit.
Why cities are named in lawsuit
The Town of Atlantic Beach and the City of North Myrtle Beach recklessly permitted the businesses’ operations, the lawsuit claims.
Because of its franchise agreement with Atlantic Watersports, the lawsuit says the Town of Atlantic Beach was required to track and monitor the business’ daily activities, logs and other certifications. But that the town had a “lack of meaningful oversight of the franchisee and its lifeguard obligations.”
The lawsuit claims that by not doing this, the town failed to “ensure that the entities providing lifeguard services within its jurisdiction were not also conducting commercial operations that compromised the quality of its lifeguard services.”
The Town of Atlantic Beach did not respond to the Sun News’ request for comment.
The City of North Myrtle Beach does not contract lifeguard services. In 2006, the city voted to take control of beach safety, according to the city’s website. Its lifeguards are only responsible for beach safety and are no longer “dual role.”
But Wilma Boddie claims in the lawsuit that the city granted one or more commercial licenses “to the same integrated enterprise controlled by Defendant Aaron Lewis,” despite the city’s knowledge that “combining commercial beach operations with water-safety functions endangered the public.”
The lawsuit also claims that the city has not complied with Wilma Boddie’s public-records request in relation to the events on the day of her husband’s drowning.
