[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Brace yourselves, Perezcious readers, for a sickening murder case.
Back on February 2, a 12-year-old boy named Clark Harman went to the Trails Carolina wilderness therapy program in Lake Toxaway, North Carolina. He was only there for one day when tragedy struck. Per WRAL, someone called 911 at around 8 a.m. local time on the day after he arrived at camp to report that he was not breathing. When firefighters arrived at the scene, they began to perform CPR. However, their efforts were in vain. The sheriff’s office said they stopped because Clark was already dead for “some time” at that point. Awful.
What happened to him? How did Clark suddenly die? The North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner finally gave some answers by releasing the official autopsy results on Monday. And according to them, this wasn’t an accident whatsoever. Per their report, the pre-teen died from “asphyxia due to smothering.” And they’ve ruled his death as a homicide! WHOA!
Related: Florida Teen Dies Of Mysterious Circumstances After Night Out
The document stated that Clark — who had a history of anxiety, ADHD, and migraines — was brought to Trails Carolina from his home in New York at the request of his family due to “ongoing behavioral issues.” During travel to or after arrival at the camp, he reportedly had “no health complaints or abnormal behavior.” He also had no known seizure disorder or prior seizures. But less than 24 hours at the camp, he was discovered unresponsive in a cabin with other kids and adult counselors.
As for what led him to become unresponsive? The autopsy report revealed that program protocol required Clark to be placed to sleep in a bivy — a small camping enclosure — with a sleeping mat and sleeping bag. The bivy is then set on top of a thick plastic sheet, which is folded up the sides to form a “canoe.” An alarm device is placed at the opening to alert counselors in the cabin if the occupant attempts to escape. What the f**k?!
With the mesh door on the bivy that secures the opening torn, the staff members decided to seal him up inside with the outer weather-resistant door instead. The report noted that around 11 pm that night Clark was “moving around and making noise in the bivy,” so the counselors removed him. A short time later, he fell asleep outside the bivy. But due to protocol, staff woke him up and made him re-enter the bivy, securing him again with the alarm device. A counselor noted Calrk was moving around again roughly 1 or 2 hours later but stopped moving shortly after. From there, the report claimed that “routine checks were performed throughout the night, but due to the outer, opaque layer of the bivy being closed, he could not be visualized.”
When counselors attempted to wake him in the morning and open the bivy, they found him unresponsive and “turned around 180 degrees from the entrance, with his head at the enclosed end of the bivy and his feet near the opening.” OMG! Although life-saving measures were attempted, medical personnel determined there was no saving Clark as rigor mortis was present, indicating he had been dead for hours by then. He basically had suffocated to death after being placed in the camping enclosure. The coroner continued:
“He was placed into this compromised sleeping area by other(s) and did not have the ability to reasonably remove himself from the situation with the alarm securing the opening. The standard protocol was deviated from due to using a damaged bivy and securing the outer weather resistant door instead of the inner mesh panel. Lastly, the counselors could not check on him as they should due to the opaque nature of the outer panel, preventing them from potentially noting the problem and delivering aid before he died. With this combination of factors, the death is best certified as homicide.”
The report also stated that “a common warning on commercially available bivy products indicates that the outer, weather resistant opening should not be fully secured as it may lead to condensation and breathing restriction.” And just to make it even more obvious that this tragedy could have been prevented, the coroner added:
“This information was obtained on basic web search.”
Now, the North Carolina Attorney General is considering pressing charges against Trails Carolina. The camp already had its license revoked last month and faces a slew of lawsuits alleging neglect and abuse. Former camp attendees lucky enough to escape with their lives detailed how the camp would horrifically put kids in “burrito” like bivys. Former camper Vic Mitterando, who spent three months there in 2017 and 2018, told WRAL:
“I immediately went through a list in my head of the ways that I was treated that could have caused his death. I was on a burrito for two weeks and I remember not being able to sleep because I could not move, I could not breathe very well, it was just like a cocoon.”
Another former attendee added:
“We would lay on a tarp and then they would wrap it over us. When I heard about the death at Trails my first reaction was, ‘I made it out but he didn’t.’”
Jeez…
Hopefully, Clark and his family will get justice for what happened to him. No kid should have ever experienced what he — and apparently countless others — did at this camp. Reactions? Let us know in the comments below.
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
[Image via David Sims/WENN]
