TRANSYLVANIA COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — All children are being removed from a wilderness camp where a child died less than 24 hours after arriving.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services sent out a release on Friday addressing their investigation of Trails Carolina, the embattled wilderness camp where a 12-year-old New York boy died.
“The decision has been made to remove all children from the care of Trails Carolina, and all new admissions are suspended,” they wrote in their release. “While the investigation is ongoing and we cannot comment on specific details, it was determined that action needed to be taken to ensure the health and safety of the children. Parents have been notified and children will be temporarily taken into care of Transylvania County DSS.”
The death at Trails Carolina is tragic and concerning. We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of the child who died, and commit to them that we are conducting a thorough investigation with our county partners and will take every appropriate step based on the outcome of our and other investigations.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
Background
The Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office says they are investigating the death of a 12-year-old boy, who was found dead at Trails Carolina on Feb. 3.
The sheriff’s office says that the boy was “transported per parents by two men from New York to Trails Carolina Camp at 500 Winding Gap Rd, Lake Toxaway, N.C.” on Feb. 2. He was assigned a cabin with other children as well as four adults.
Warrants obtained by TCSO, shared by WBTV, state that the child slept in a sleeping bag inside a bivvy that had an alarm attached to the zipper, which would alert staff if he tried to exit it. Bivvy bags, or bivouac sacks, are a cross between a single-person tent and a sleeping bag, developed for campers who want ultralight emergency shelter.
While the staff member that law enforcement spoke with said that the boy could exit the bivvy if he wanted to, they noted that the staff member “kept stating that ‘we’ would open or close the bivvy.”
The child had what staff described as a panic attack around midnight, and he was checked on every few hours until he was found dead at 7:45 a.m., “cold to the touch and stiff.” The last check was reportedly at 6 a.m.
Then, just after 8 a.m. on Feb. 3, a call to emergency services reported that the boy was not breathing.
“Upon arrival, rescue efforts were initiated and then stopped as the child appeared to be deceased for some time,” the sheriff’s office said. “The child was sent for autopsy to Winston-Salem as his death appeared suspicious since he had arrived at the camp less than 24 hours prior to his death. An autopsy was conducted on 02/06/2024 and the forensic pathologist conducting it stated to investigators that death appeared to not be natural but the manner and cause of death is still pending.”
The staff members at the child’s cabin were put on leave, and the children were moved to other cabins, but the sheriff’s office noted in their initial release that “Trails Carolina Camp has not completely cooperated with the investigation.”
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has ordered the camp to stop admitting children, in a document obtained by WLOS, accusing the camp of denying the Department of Social Services access to the children for days, ordering them to “discontinue use of bivy bags for any purpose for all children or adults at the camp through the conclusion of all investigations in this matter.”
Trails Carolina denied law enforcement access to the other children who had been sleeping in the same bunk.
Additional issues
This was not the first death in Trails Carolina history.
A child, Alec Lansing, died in 2014. According to his autopsy report, Lansing broke his hip and succumbed to hypothermia. A report made at the time by Blue Ridge Now stated that he had left the trail around 2:30 p.m. and had been reported missing later that evening.
NCDHHS has a history of disciplinary measures against the camp with five “Statements of Deficiencies” issued between 2019 and 2023, the most recent issued in June, stating that multiple children at the camp were physically restrained.
They noted in their paperwork, “Seclusion, physical restraint and isolation time-out may be employed only by staff who have been trained and have demonstrated competence in the proper use of and alternatives to these procedures. Facilities shall ensure that staff authorized to employ and terminate these procedures are retrained and have demonstrated competence at least annually.”
In the missive sent to Trail Carolina after the child’s death, NCDHHS wrote, “Further, we want to remind you that the use of restrictive interventions must be reported as outlined in the IRIS manual for which Trails Carolina is subject and must adhere to.”
Trails Carolina is also facing a lawsuit from a girl who alleges she was raped by another camper while staying at Trails Carolina and that authority figures within the camp dismissed concerns about the camper and did not remove her from the victim’s bunk despite multiple complaints of being sexually assaulted.
