N.C. report says wilderness camp failed to check boy's breathing

Staff at Trails Carolina did not ensure that a 12-year-old boy was breathing during his first night at the facility, a state report found.

Staff at a North Carolina wilderness therapy camp failed to check that a 12-year-old boy was breathing during his first night at the facility, a state report released Tuesday found.

The boy, who has been identified in law enforcement records only by his initials, CJH, was found unresponsive around 7:45 a.m. on Feb. 3 at Trails Carolina, a camp for troubled adolescents in the western part of the state. 

Trails Carolina in Lake Toxaway, North Carolina.WYFFHe had been required to sleep in a tubelike tent, known as a bivy, enclosed by a solid plastic sheet. Upon discovering that CJH’s bivy’s zipper was broken, the report says, “staff needed a zip tie out of the tool bag,” though it doesn’t specify how the zip tie was used.

A staff member told law enforcement that they believed the sleeping arrangements “had a lot to do with” the boy’s death, according to the report, and that “suffocation is always possible if the equipment is being used wrong.” Another staff member, also unnamed, told law enforcement he believed CJH suffocated and that the camp was responsible for the death, the report stated.

A “statement of deficiencies” report from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services concluded that staff failed to provide proper supervision of CJH, who was physically healthy when he arrived on the afternoon of Feb. 2. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trails-carolina-inspection-report-boy-death-rcna149037

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