run over on beach

Last Modified: Tuesday, October 14, 2014 at 9:52 p.m.

A judge has sided with Volusia County in a family’s lawsuit over the 2010 death of Aiden Patrick, a 4-year-old boy from Deltona who was killed by a pickup while running toward the ocean in New Smyrna Beach.

In an order issued Friday in circuit court, Judge Robert Rouse wrote that Aiden’s father “was aware of all of the dangers posed by vehicles such as the truck the child darted in front of.” He added: “Here, there is nothing that Volusia could have imparted to the father that would have increased his knowledge of the immediate danger to his four-year-old son, and the need to exercise a high degree of care for the child’s safety.”

An attorney who brought the lawsuit said Tuesday the case wasn’t over. “We are filing a motion for the judge to reconsider,” Lou Pendas of the Pendas Law Firm in Orlando said in an email. “Should that fail, we plan on appealing. This fight is not over!”

From the county’s perspective, the case was over, although Volusia attorney Dan Eckert said the judge’s order did not apply to Donovan Sias, the driver of the truck that hit Aiden. The Patricks sued Sias, along with Volusia County.

Aiden was the second of two 4-year-olds killed on Volusia beaches in 2010, a pair of nationally publicized tragedies that eventually prompted a series of new safety measures on the beach. The family of the other toddler, a…