Diem Le Nguyen is described by family as being devoted to her friends, family, and causes.<\/p>\n
Sadly, Nguyen lost her life during a hike-for-a-cause in 2024 on Black Mountain in Rancho Penasquitos.<\/p>\n
“It’s really sad, losing someone,” said family member William Do during an interview after her death. “All the memories you have, it’s really hard.”<\/p>\n
Do filed suit against the “Build A School Foundation.”<\/p>\n
Among other claims, the suit accuses the foundation of wrongful death and negligence in ignoring the heat dangers of the day and not getting the proper permitting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m on the board for VAYA and we host one of the largest Lunar New Year festivals in San Diego,” explained Tri Luu.<\/p>\n
As the attorney for the family, he says that board experience and his legal expertise have shown him permitting is critical to safety.<\/p>\n
“The city will sometimes require you to have certain insurance obligations. They will sometimes have a ranger on call. They will have or require certain safety precautions,” Luu said.<\/p>\n
So for our festival, the city comes back to us and says, we require paramedics on standby.<\/p>\n
Fifty-year-old Nguyen was found dead a day after the June 23, 2024 morning hike that happened during the start of San Diego\u2019s first heat wave of that summer.<\/p>\n
Investigators say Nguyen called her sister around 10 a.m. complaining about heat and the need for water.<\/p>\n
Organizer Jimmy Thai said the roughly 150 hikers were outfitted with black T-shirts. They were also provided with plenty of water and snacks and the trail was marked with chalk.<\/p>\n
But Nguyen\u2019s body was found a day after the hike on a totally different trail.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn’t have any safety precautions or safety measures in place,\u201d said Attorney Luu. They didn’t have any kind of formal tracking or partner system. In fact, based on the information we’ve seen so far, they were handing out black T-shirts on one of the hottest days of the year.”<\/p>\n
Nguyen’s three children have been left to mourn her loss. They\u2019re hoping the suit will provide justice that sends a message to others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you’re going to start hosting events that can require some safety precautions, do it the right way. Have insurance, make sure you’re following the law,” said Luu.<\/p>\n
Attorney Luu says in addition to negligence,\u00a0another reason the family filed suit is because they believe the organizer of the hike put together an unauthorized vigil in their mother’s honor to promote his foundation.<\/p>\n
NBC San Diego reached out to the foundation for comment but have not heard back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diem Le Nguyen is described by family as being devoted to her friends, family, and causes. Sadly, Nguyen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1016,13098,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-372678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-lawsuits","tag-rancho-penasquitos","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}