Autopsy report rules 12-year-old's death at camp for troubled adolescents a homicide
www.nbcnews.com
The boy, who died after less than 24 hours at Trails Carolina, couldn’t breathe in the tent where he was placed to sleep, according to an autopsy report.

The boy died in February, less than 24 hours after having arrived at Trails Carolina, a for-profit program that has since lost its operating license. Trails Carolina has said the death appeared to be accidental and that staff members performed CPR after they found the boy unresponsive the morning after he arrived. He was inside a bivy, a one-person tent secured with an alarm.

The camp has said it routinely placed children in bivvies overnight for their safety when they arrived. The autopsy report said the inner mesh panel of the boy’s bivy was torn, so counselors sealed the outer, weather-resistant door panel instead, which was not the camp’s protocol.

Before its license was revoked, Trails Carolina, in Lake Toxaway, served children with behavioral issues and diagnoses such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism and post-traumatic stress disorder. A medical examiner’s report released with the autopsy findings said the boy who died had ADHD, anxiety, migraines and social challenges, including “a very hard time making friends.”

  • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
    7·
    5 months ago

    I thought this was a bit absurd until I looked up what a “bivy” is, as I’d been assuming it was just a tent.

    Yeah, not hard to see how a kid could suffocate by getting turned around in what is basically a watertight sack with two sticks added. Wtf? who puts kids, let alone kids with anxiety, into one of those things unattended? holy shit.

    • entropicshart
      6·
      5 months ago

      The autopsy report, issued by the state chief medical examiner’s office, said bivvies typically include warnings against fully enclosing the weather-resistant outer layer “as it may lead to condensation and breathing restriction.”

      The asphyxia finding was a “diagnosis of exclusion, meaning all other reasonable causes of death” were ruled out, it said. The boy was “placed into this compromised sleeping position by other(s) and did not have the ability to reasonably remove himself,” the report said.

      So they basically suffocated the child and didn’t bother to check up on them even once

      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
        1·
        5 months ago

        Nono, see this was totally normal procedure. It was just a wild accident that the kid was sealed inside completely inverted. Not their fault. Clearly. For some reason. If they’d left him the right way round, he might have set off the alarm?