Wilderness camp where boy recently died is accused of ignoring sexual assault in new lawsuit
A former student of a wilderness camp where a boy recently died is suing, alleging staff dismissed her claims of sexual assault and denied her basic necessities.
A former student of a North Carolina wilderness camp where a 12-year-old boy recently died is suing the program, alleging staff members dismissed her claims of sexual assault by another camper and denied her basic necessities when she attended in 2016.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina over the weekend, accuses Trails Carolina of creating “an environment where troubled children have and do sexually assault other children” and of failing “to provide adequate medical care, food, and shelter for the children in its custody.”
The suit comes a week after a child died the morning after he arrived at Trails Carolina, a camp for troubled youths in Lake Toxaway, North Carolina. Authorities have said the boy’s death “appeared to not be natural.”
A public relations firm for Trails Carolina said Monday afternoon that it had not yet been served the lawsuit and did not yet have a comment. Trails Carolina’s owner, Wilderness Training & Consulting, which is also named as a defendant, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In statements issued in the days after the boy’s death on Feb. 3, the camp cautioned against speculation and said through the PR firm that its priority “has been to acknowledge and respect the unfathomable impact on this family’s life and maintain the integrity of the investigation.”
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