It has been six years since 14 year old Matthew Meyers died in a Texas Wilderness program called Lonestar Expeditions. The program did later close during the financial crisis in that decade.
It just one death among so many in wilderness programs. Lonestar Expeditions was at that time owned by one of the large firms who run wilderness programs called Aspen Education Group.
Due to a financial settlement the details of his death is not known but it was not due to restraints.
We also have no knowledge of the medical history he had when he entered the wilderness program but it is generally kwown that some types of medication can be a killer if you take the patient out in a hot environment and fail to supervise their water intake. They can boil to death and it is not enough just to remind them to drink.
The death of Matthew Meyers is in its nature very similar to the deaths of Erica Harvey and Sergey Blashchishen - also in wilderness programs.
The obvious question you have to ask yourself is whether the medical staff will deny a teenager of medication of these types access to the wilderness program when they can earn 450 dollars per day by take the chance.
They took the chance and Matthew Meyers died.
Did his death change the industry? No. Business as usual and it didn't take long before a new child did return to his family in a body bag.
References:
Victims between year 2000 and 2004 (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora Wiki)
Holy the children Teen advocate USA
Can Wilderness Camps Kill Your Kid? (MomLogic, June 22, 2009)
I was there. Not as s staff, but as a teen in the program. I saw him be carried away in a rescue helicopter...
ReplyDeleteWhat was COD?
Deletesadly it's unknown
DeleteI went to programs. You heard things circulate around when things like this happened. I clearly remember knowing that the staff broke his neck in a restraint. Specifically remember, that it was on the internet as well. There used to be far more on the internet from people who were sent as kids like us and were the first ones to have access to the internet when we got home. Between like 2005-2010 there was A TON on the internet that was very google-able about the troubled teen industry.. then one day, poof, things started disappearing. Its been scrubbed. That kids neck was broken.
DeleteI was in the girls camp when it was Hope Center. These places are abhorrent. I can’t imagine sending my child there. Who’s worse. The institution or the parents?
ReplyDelete