The mother and grandfather of 9-year-old David William Grapes Jr. filed a wrongful death suit in Cabarrus County against the Roseman family, owners of Blue Waters, and Dale Triplett, a family friend who took the boy to the pool June 26, 1998, the day he died.

The medical examiner’s report concluded that Grapes died from a lack of air due to drowning. But Crystal Roseman, in an interview with the Post, said Grapes’ mother, Teresa Bell Story, told her the boy had severe health problems and “would have died no matter where he was.”

“There was no autopsy done on the child, so they cannot prove that he drowned,” Crystal Roseman said.

Grapes was born with a brain condition that required surgery shortly after birth, his mother has previously told the Post. According to her, the condition caused learning and reading disabilities.

“If I had a child that was that sick,” Crystal Roseman said, “I would not let my child go to the pool with anyone else but myself. … I would have to say the parents were negligent.”

The lawsuit claims Grapes, a Kannapolis resident, “suffered catastrophic personal injuries and wrongful death by drowning as a direct and proximate result of the negligence” of the Rosemans.

Crystal Roseman and her husband, James Roseman Jr., said their insurance company is handling the lawsuit for them. They are upset the pool is being blamed for the youth’s death, she said.

The lawsuit also names Dale Triplett as a defendant. Triplett, a friend of Grapes’ father, took him to the pool the day he drowned and “agreed to accept the duty to supervise” the youth, according to the lawsuit.

Grapes was “unable to swim with the level of competence required in order to avoid serious personal injury and death,” and Triplett was aware of that fact, the lawsuit indicated.

The lawsuit went on to say Triplett was aware Grapes “possessed less than average intelligence … and was unable to fully recognize the risks of serious injury and death which existed.”

Triplett could not be reached for comment.

Crystal Roseman contends the boy died from pre-existing conditions rather than drowning.

“We let EMTs free in the pool, just to have them around,” she said. “We had them there (that day) and they said that he didn’t drown, there had to be something else.”

She said Grapes was revived two or three times but he “just wouldn’t live.”