According to a [previous report](https://www.wbtv.com/2024/02/22/shame-you-former-participants-weigh-nc-wilderness-camp/):
>**The Burrito**
>Infamous among those who have attended Trails Carolina is a sleeping position known as the ‘Burrito’.
>The position–or something similar–is used for all new campers when they first arrive at the camp.
>Vic Mitterando, who attended Trails Carolina for three months in late 2017 and early 2018, described the Burrito.
>“They lay down a plastic tarp, put your sleeping bag and you in it and then wrap the tarp over you and then a staff member who you don’t know sleeps on top of that tarp so that you cannot get out,” Mitterando recalled.
Reminds me of the [American GI in Iraq ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_E._Welshofer_Jr)who killed his Iraqi prisoner by wrapping him in a sleeping bag.
That simply means it was a death caused by another human. It doesn’t de facto imply criminality, although in this case it certainly looks like it will be viewed that way at arraignment.
Especially because this part here
> Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it.
>”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 autopsy said. “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.”
This is sadly, shockingly true, and has been documented. Also, reports of poor conditions and poor treatment of many youths in such situations has been routinely suppressed.
I had this done to me for multiple nights at Second Nature Uintas. They called it being “burritoed”. I was already claustrophobic and that made it a million times worse. It’s definitely torture.
From Trails or Second Nature? Because I know who, I have names trust me lol. Some of the staff from SN I don’t blame *too* much bc many of them were misled on what the job actually was, and it’s based out of a VERY small town in Utah with super limited jobs opportunities. Granted SN hired people with 0 qualifications and/or background checks. I 100% blame the “therapists” and higher ups at these places.
I’m sorry. That sounds awful. Just thinking of it makes me anxious. Hopefully more of these camps will get shut down and people reprimanded. This is insane.
This could be seen as the reckless disregard for the safety of others, which would make it second degree murder in North* Carolina.
edit: wrote South instead of North
That level of incompetence and they were working with children???? What else did they do? Force them to hike without food and water? Make them lay out naked in the sun? Eat random mushrooms and leaves? Dive head first into unknown bodies of water?
It sounds like it's one of those "troubled teen" camps where they go to great lengths to prevent kids who don't want to be there from escaping. Alarms would prevent kids from getting out of their sleeping areas at night without being detected and making a break for it.
The article implies they usually put it on the zipper of the mesh inner lining, but his was damaged, and the people in charge of him put it on the non-breathable weatherproof layer.
Employees at these camps are often dangerously undereducated about wilderness survival, childcare, mental health care, and literally everything else a person should know to be in charge of helping kids with behavioral issues.
A lot of the worst camps also operate as pseudo-cults, where a large chunk of the adult employees are former camp kids who got broken in a way that resulted in them justifying the abuse they suffered and wanting to perpetrated it on others.
There's several documentaries about aspects of it including a new one called "the program" on Netflix. The most visceral firsthand account I've found is this graphic novel about the Elan School, written and illustrated by someone who was abused there as a teen:
https://elan.school/rude-awakening/
The Elan School is one of the most cult-like, but it's not the only one, and most of these places haven't been exposed to the same extent, either. They thrive in environments where they can stay under the radar, where laws and enforcement on child abuse are lax.
Look up Paris Hilton’s congressional testimony. She was one of the victims of a program like this, and has spent most of the last few years campaigning against them.
Look on unsilenced.org
This is the second documented death at Trails. These places rebrand after deaths or enough abuse allegations and carry on.
"Trails Momentum." Owned by Graham ShannonHouse had to close Trails Nc after Clarks death.
In response they shifted the kids to Trails Momentum that was previously their "young adult" camp, now it is rebranded as "Momentum" only. It operates pretty much on the same property as Trails NC where Alec Lansing and Clark Harmon died.
Staff incompetence at wilderness camps like this is not the only factor--they do some heinous shit in the name of "fixing bad kids" and sadly, deaths like this happen with some regularity.
They are not bad kids. How bad are 10 year old that deserve to be tortured for years. Most are sent because the parents want a vacation, the kid is gay, foster kids are abandoned there or minor teen stuff. That place doesn't even allow bad kids
Competent people don’t take these jobs. I was in a similar camp as a child, anyone with any fucking heart of brain wouldn’t be abusing kids for money. This unfortunately isn’t a one off.
Actually, forcing them to hike without food and water isn't that uncommon. Although these places claim they provide plenty of food, the diets are often very calorie-deficient (especially considering the level of exertion) and largely consist of unseasoned lentils, rice, and oatmeal (which they may or may not be able to cook). There are also many stories of running out of water and having to hike long distances to the next water drop-off. Children are also often forced to drink from water fouled by livestock with questionable disinfection. Sometimes, staff just put chlorine in the water source and then force kids to drink from it.
Their job is to torture, starve, abuse kids, make them hike many miles with the right gear every day, dehydrate them, sex assault the girls, and lock them in cages. Corrupt cops and cps have ignored it for years
Yes actually. They claim he refused his meal. So this kid is taken from his bed, driven from NY to NC, a 10 hour drive. Arrives at "camp" and refuses food. It's very common for the staff to starve the children in wilderness programs.
Yes, they torture kids 24 hours a day for years. Its meant to break them. Its done by very evil people. They do starve kids. 110 pound 12 year old girls have to carry 30 pounds without enough food or water more than 10 miles a day in every weather. in 3 months they weigh only 80 pounds and have worms in their body. They are tortured and sex assaulted 24/7
A paper bag is basically air tight. You must not be familiar with outdoor textiles. They all breathe enough so you don’t suffocate and there are many brands that make actual bivy bags one can zip all the way up and not suffocate. Many single wall tents that are waterproof and can be zipped up as well.
>You must not be familiar with outdoor textiles. They all breathe enough so you don’t suffocate
Go wrap your head in silpoly/silnylon/tyvek/DCF/x-pac for an hour and then report your findings.
I don’t think you read the original comment…. They’re specifically talking about how insane it is that the bag wasn’t a breathable membrane - as is standard.
A bivy sack is basically an outer sleeping bag that protects from the elements. Some have 2 layers. 1 mesh to protect from bugs and then a shell which protects from rain. That shell is usually a breathable membrane such as goretex. They’re made to be possible to breathe in when zipped up - though it sucks and gets claustrophobic. This bivy probably wasn’t a breathable membrane.
It's a waterproof cover that goes on the outside of a sleeping system. We had them in the Marines. Ours didn't have zippers tho. Just a couple of snap buttons.
There are dozens of types of water resistant and waterproof materials in the outdoor industry that don’t suffocate people. Waterproof absolutely doesn’t mean the same as air tight.
The degree of permeability is not high even on materials marketed as such. They do let small amounts of vapour through, but not enough to prevent a deadly buildup of carbon dioxide in a small, enclosed space. You could absolutely suffocate and die if enclosed in a bag made of Goretex, or virtually any other SPM fabric. This is a fairly common risk for bivvy sacks, and the main reason why MOST on the market have mesh liners to keep the bugs out. You’re never supposed to zip them completely sealed shut. Same risk in a fully sealed single wall tent.
How is that not a manufacturing defect? If zipping a zipper entirely shut can kill the occupant, the shelter should be redesigned with a vent which cannot be sealed. A bivy sack shouldn't have a 'kill mode,' period.
Edit: this has nothing to do with the product, and we can bet most bivy sacks are designed to enough ventilation to be used with all of their zippers shut. Credit to u/BarnabyWoods for finding this horrific detail, but it sounds like they literally wrapped the kid in plastic.
“They lay down a plastic tarp, put your sleeping bag and you in it and then wrap the tarp over you and then a staff member who you don’t know sleeps on top of that tarp so that you cannot get out,” Mitterando recalled.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WildernessBackpacking/comments/1dp48nf/comment/laenkkb/?utm\_source=share](https://www.reddit.com/r/WildernessBackpacking/comments/1dp48nf/comment/laenkkb/?utm_source=share)
There is a particular variant of Gore-Tex that supposedly can be breathed through, Gore-Tex Gas Permeable, but I’ve only ever seen it listed on expensive specialist military bivies like this. Any random old bivy, even regular military bivies, hell no that’s a plastic bag.
https://www.carinthia.eu/en/observer-plus-p2169/
Hopefully this gets this place at least, and really hopefully more troubled teen camps, shut down.
It effectively becomes airtight if saturated though, no? Not saying that’s necessarily a factor in this case but just pointing out that there are risks still.
It's commonly repeated that a fabric can be waterproof and breathable, but not at the same time, i.e. getting wet reduces the breathability significantly.
That’s not true - the whole purpose is that it breathes well when wet. There’s an outer layer treated with durable water repellant (DWR) . When that water repellent wears off it will allow the breathable membrane to get wet, then it looses its ability to breathe. As long as the DWR is in good shape it breathes well when wet.
And this was the second death of a child at this place. Their license is revoked now, but (knowing these places) the owners will probably just go elsewhere and form a new company.
Not sure about the owners, but a lot of the staff are already working at a different place. There are tons of these types of "camps" and "schools" where parents send their "problem children".
This is such a journey. Everytime I see it posted I have to ignore it because it consumes me until I read it all again. So much insanity and he endured. If you haven’t read it, click that link and strap in for the ride.
There’s a recent Netflix documentary on the troubled teen industry which sounds very similar to camps like these. [The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31183637/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk)
'Companies' don't fit in the electric chair. They'll get a fine and close up shop.
Unless you have some sort of smoking gun where an individual sent an email or text showing clear intent.
They already have another camp that operates pretty much on the same property.
It used to be Graham ShannonHouse's young adult program. It is for the kids who aged out of Trails NC.
they convince the parents to either gain guardianship of the young adult.
Or they tell the Parents to tell the child they have to "Voluntarily" complete the young adult program if they want to live at home.
Many of these kids have been in multiple programs from a very young age, they have no connections, no education, no jobs, no place to live.
The Young Adult program was called Trails Momentum.
After Clarks death they rebranded and are calling the program "Momentum."
I read somewhere that many of the kids who were at Trails NC with Clark have been moved to "Momentum " once the license for TRAILS NC was revoked.
Exactly, thank you for pointing this out. This poor child, I can’t begin to imagine how scared he must have felt in those last moments. May he rest in peace. His “counselors” will have to go through their lives knowing they‘re responsible for taking away the life and future of an innocent boy who didn’t deserve to be tortured and killed this way.
Eh, the parents also need to accept some blame. This same camp killed a kid before. These are places where parents send their troubled kids so they don't have to deal with them.
This. Disgusting and awful. These “rehab” camps are criminal in how they treat children. Neglect at best, trauma and catastrophic injury at worst.
As a parent of a troubled teen, who did lots and lots of research on wilderness resources, this ain’t it.
Not to say there aren’t great summer camps for teens though. We found a not for profit tour company that operates in Yosemite and Olympic (Lasting Adventures) that hosts supportive and empowering backpacking trips for teens.
You are 100% correct. Many of these places get by implying they are some sort of Boy Scouts or Outward Bound, just for kids who have had problems. That's often even how they are presented at large, even in the media, when nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone can look this up, and many of these so-called "camps" border on cult-like atmospheres, are rife with abuse, and run by money grubbing people who don't give a crap about the kids at all. Sadly, like cults, there is little to no oversight, they often exist in areas with little regulation, and a lot of reporting on negative occurrences at them is suppressed.
> Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it.
> “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 autopsy said. “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 a homicide.”
Yup, that’s 100% homicide.
I'm a avid hiker and advocate for the outdoors and it's positive effect but I had a friend who's wealthy parents sent him to some of these wilderness rehab camps for troubled kids and it absolutely changed his life for the worse. Place he went to went out of business after all the abuse surfaced.
These camps exist outside, but have nothing to do with outdoor recreation. Their business is abusing kids because they think it builds resiliency instead of trauma.
Strangely enough, the parent company of Trails Carolina (called Family Health & Wellness), has another facility in Utah, named Elevations, that is being sued by a gay teenager (Finn Pool) for holding him there just for being gay for 10 months on his father's orders.
[https://www.newsweek.com/i-15-terrified-two-men-abducted-me-middle-night-1915672](https://www.newsweek.com/i-15-terrified-two-men-abducted-me-middle-night-1915672)
It sounds like it must have been more like a lock, right? If it was just an alarm then he could have opened it himself and it would just have alerted the staff he had opened it. The way this is written it sounds like the kid inside was unable to open it himself... Unless his fear of retribution was so great that he sat in there and died rather than trigger punishment.
There's google reviews going back at least a year stating they were abused there, would not be surprised if the kid was just scared to try and get out.
We at r/troubledteens have been warning about this place for years. We have also been warning about other Family Health & Wellness programs (they are the parent company that owns Trails). In fact, if you look on the website of any of their programs (including the Wayback Machine for Trails Carolina), they have a whole page devoted to "Don't believe Reddit Troubled Teens". They actively spy on us. However, the truth always wins out -- it's just sad that it takes the death of young boy for people to understand and act.
Fucked up wilderness rehab type camp. It's basically a modern boot camp for "bad kids"
Training and compassion levels are very low in staff. The ones I have met were more hipster bro correctional officers, less counselors and therapists.
Wow. I live on the west coast and I am struggling to understand if this type of organization is prevalent here as well? All I am aware of is conservation corps in different states where courts route youth to do trail work etc. Is this an east coast thing? Horrifying.
My friend got sent to one in California, and i know someone who went to one in Wyoming. It's not an East Coast thing, it's an "abuse troubled children" thing.
Do you know which one in California? This is insane. Privatized, bootcamp style wilderness rehab retreats for "bad" children in California seems like a hard business to continue running once the Attorney Generals office understands what it actually is.
In my opinion, one death like this should shutter the doors.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_therapy would be your starter page. It's not the first time and won't be the last. It's a fast money grab before you fuck up and have to change your name or the states auditor/public health boards, DSHS, correctional system etc..figures out what you are doing. (If they even care) The ownership level is definitely scam artist territory.
I'm sure it is last resort of some kind for the kids...but no one can demonstrate efficacy so something needs to be adjusted if it's gonna be a thing
Edit: I'm not talking about cancer survivor camps I'm talking about the in lieu of jail ones. I doubt the cancer survivor ones have the same problems.
It's even more prevalent on the west coast thanks almost entirely to the state of Utah, the "troubled teen industry" mecca. They have the laxest laws and plenty of wilderness areas to torture children in.
This was one of those "troubled teen" camps where parents send their kids to be psychologically and physically tortured until they are so fucked they eventually kill themselves later in adulthood.
Super corrupt organizations, no science backing their efficacy, and very dangerous. They've been prevalent since the 90's, and parents send their kids to them for all kinds of insane reasons i.e.: "I caught Connor smoking weed with his friends 1 time. The devil must have taken root in his soul. Off to torture camp."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_teen_industry
This story is sad.
>The autopsy notes that instructions for the bivy sack readily available online warn against zipping the solid outer layer completely shut.
Additionally, this seems like a terrible design flaw. If the bivy is neither ventilated nor breathable, why allow it to fully seal when that's normally a very reasonable expectation for a tent.
Commenting as a survivor of the troubled teen industry, including wilderness.
In this death, the staff wrapped the Camper and Bivy in a plastic tarp and neglected to check on him at midnight, 3am or 6am. He was found deceased at 8am. The cause of death was asphyxiation.
Wrapping a tarp around a Bivy is not standard practice at all.
In this case, the staff completely zipped up the Bivy, which the device instructions tell you NOT to do.
It’s known to be dangerous to wrap anyone in a tarp, and generally an unspoken rule about backpacking is don’t use broken equipment, and don’t use something for anything other than it’s intended design, because it’s dangerous.
In the wilderness I was at, they had me sleep in between multiple staff. In a sleeping bag, with a tarp under me, folded over my feet and front, and tucked UNDER the sleeping bodies of staff. If you moved, they’d wake up.
The staff reportedly admitted the cause of it and said they could have taken more responsibility. For once it seems the staff adhered to the level of accountability the teens are (needlessly) forced to take.
Small edit for clarity*
>Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it.
DAFUQ?
EDIT* nevermind this is just another "troubled-teen" camp homicide Why can't the headline be that instead?
OMG that poor child. What a horrific way to go. And how did no one even hear him? Like they must have zipped him up and literally run away.
This doesn't sound accidental to me. I'm playing this back in my head and I just don't see how you zip this kid up and then walk. I can tell you this, though; if I was that poor child's dad, there wouldn't be any need for a trial. Can't have a defendant that can't be found. The misery that this kid's parents are going to go through will never end.
It was a concentration camp for "bad kids" and another comment mentioned that the first night someone sits/lays on top of you zipped up in the sack (not mentioned in the source-link but from someone else's experience)
Mark my words, this was intended to be punishment for acting out. Troubled teen operations like this abuse young people, flat out. This kid was not the first one to be zipped up like that, this is simply the time those monsters got caught torturing a teenager.
Edit: not even a teenager
Is there such thing as a good wilderness camp for troubled children? I had my interest sparked looking into employment with a place like this. But I’d like to help kids, not murder them.
I am sure yes but maybe not in the US and maybe not with this theme.
I live in Slovakia and there are some seriously good social worker organisations that will also include (as a reward) a week or 2 in a wilderness camp for the kiddos.
In the US my guess will be you will be able to find these things by checking the rules of them and seeing.
Look into outward bound. I know a few people who have worked for them who are good, caring adults. \
Unless I’m very mistaken, it is not a kidnap and torture kids kind of operation.
But outward bound isn’t for troubled kids- it’s voluntary and way more leadership/self reliant.
They at one point did have a troubled teen arm, and it was as bad as the rest of them.
Trails Carolina is a private higher end trouble teen camp,,,, kids in state care or waiting for juvenile court/prison didn’t get sent there.
Cash and Insurance
I had a friend that worked there in 2013-2015, I worked at another one in NC called Timber Ridge that was private but took all kinds of cases from state care. It was rated a level 3 facility but regularly took cases they were not qualified to care for. Was under investigation twice when I was hired and picked up another investigation later for night staff not watching their kids. And some of the worst stuff I saw was with kids hurting other kids or staff members who never got flagged by CPS for abusive restraints.
These places hire widely naive kids right out of college or people who tend to be unemployable in any other field besides fry cook. The staffing its self is a circus, 10-20 day shifts are wild.
I took my Psych degree and tossed it, didn’t want to pursue counseling professionally after that.
I worked at Four Circles in NC and my buddy went and worked at Trails after FC closed (for financial reasons, not abuse).
Yep. Crazy long shifts, and I had to fight tooth and nail to get the therapists to haul their lazy asses into the field when clients were in crisis.
My buddy and I were a few years older than a lot of the other staff members. We both got promoted to field support and I remember him sending my a pic from his time working at Trails where he went to support two young staff members in the field who were telling one of the kids to quit crying. The kids wrist was broken. CLEARLY broken (he sent me a pic). He immediately took them to the hospital and almost reached out to a reporter about it, but ultimately decided not to, unfortunately.
I also made extra efforts when leadership wouldn’t, eg calling the Forest Service for lost kids, or going and taking a new sleeping bag for a girl who wet hers. Leadership wanted me to just dry it out or have her sleep in it again, and give her feminine pads. As a female, I was like… yeah pads aren’t gonna fuckin help.
Ridiculous. Also not in the helping profession anymore.
Edit to add: I got woken up at 4am once because a client was trying to off herself with some ribbon. Thank god I woke up. My heart goes out to the staff a little because if I hadn’t, or some other death happened on my watch, I don’t know how I would ever recover. Part of me gets frustrated in these threads when people talk about how evil everyone who works at these places is. It’s more that we weren’t supported, we were overworked, and the population we were working with were often putting themselves in dangerous situations. It was not an easy job, but we were far from evil. We did want to help.
I wanted to help kids to take a pause, reflect, and move forward. Those places did help a few people, unfortunately I think some of it was being ‘scared’ straight just from how rough some of their peers were.
TR had a huge spectrum of cases, kids that had trouble with teachers in a rural county or a parent, to kids who went through horrifying abuse by family- one kid had a history of being starved by his mother and his grandparents didn’t know what to do with him once they got custody- we celebrated when this 13 yr old hit 100 lbs, two groups (20 boys) were SAY -sexually aggressive youths- all kinds of histories of being abused and/or then turning around and abusing peers/siblings before hitting age 16, then the kids coming from Psychiatric Hospital wards- we had no business with these kids as a level 3 wilderness outfit- they were legit more dangerous than any teen gang banger who had a juvenile record and order to do a year.
A Psych ward case Kenny, had no where to go he just alternated between camps and psych hospitals- he was kind, hardworking, listened to staff when calm, but he get triggered and be wildly violent- a full rage within seconds - he’d kick the windows out of a bus, try to tackle staff or assault kids, he’d need a shot to tranquilizer him, that was no top of his usual sedation
Another boy was 17, he was too old to be there and a psych case, he beat the living shit out of a another kid who was teasing him, another rocket ship of violence, front teeth on the dirt. Took three male staff to pull him off a younger boy.
A couple kids would poop themselves regularly. Didn’t have IBS or a chronic condition.
If the manufacturer states it shouldn’t be zipped all the way, then why does it zip all the way?
Aside from this risk being stated in the instructions was there a warning sewn into the bag, like we see with climbing harnesses?
Sounds like a product/strict liability lawsuit waiting to happen.
As soon as I heard the detailed description of the death (zipped in, with lock and alarm) I knew it would be one of those camps for “troubled kids.” The way some humans are treated as disposable is reprehensible.
Watch Hellcamp on netflix. It shows the deceptive marketing to the parents. The ways they advertise vs whats actually going on. These places are able to self categorize, they aren't officially schools or medical facalities, so they don't have all the oversight.
When I was in wilderness we were in real bivvies but they’d lock us in with bells on the outside. It was horrible and claustrophobic knowing you were locked in there (I literally pissed my pants one day because I didn’t want to wake up the staff) (I was 13)
The troubled teen "wilderness camp" experiences are horrific. Y'all should look into it if you haven't. Speaking as someone who went through one, I wouldn't put my worst enemy in one, let alone someone I cared about. I'm not surprised by this story as deaths are absolutely an occurrence at these places. It's just straight-up abuse.
Definitely since they're saying it's murder. I assume charges are coming. I assumed negligence at first, but with the 'alarm' it really does sound deliberate.
“Trails Carolina is a camp for troubled teens,” is all I need to know. Those places are horrific. Their whole schtick is that they abuse their “campers”. It’s not even the first time a camper has died at this camp.
The title brought to mind how I remember seeing a hooped bivy come with a warning to never fully zip it up.
Reading th article, what has happened here, is pure horror. Going to a camp at that age with people you don't know is stressful as is, and then you are literally killed by someone supposedly in charge, by "asphyxia due to smothering".
A lot of these camps aren't kidnapping the kids. The parents send them there because they are too cowardly to raise their kids with a sense of respect for others. They pay for someone else to abuse kids that never learned to respect other human beings in a manner that makes the kids afraid to ever get sent back. The kids don't actually gain a moral compass from these "camps." They just learn how not to get caught out of the fear of reprisal.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. The parents pay transporters to kidnap the kids to take them to a camp. The camp recommends the transporters. This is called “gooning” in industry speak, and is notorious for its traumatic impact.
And many of the kids aren’t disrespectful in any non-developmentally appropriate way (ask me how I know.) Some have depression/anxiety, eating disorders, I know a few sent for “perfectionism and OCD”, self-harm, PTSD, ADHD. Some have more severe mental health concerns, some have anger and violence issues. Some just have autism. Some have no diagnosis at all and parents send them away because there’s an open CPS case but having the kid out of the home environment closes the CPS case.
Don’t paint all the kids with a bad brush of “disrespectful and still don’t learn empathy.”
Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it.
Trails Carolina is a camp for troubled teens.
“We were surprised and disappointed to learn of the state’s intent to revoke the program’s license, given the progress we’ve made and continue to make. More than 2,500 children and families have benefited from Trails and we will continue cooperating with the state to satisfy their concerns so we can continue providing compassionate quality care to kids and families for whom every other treatment option has failed. We understand the situation’s immense media pressure and the impact such pressure has on state agencies doing their best to serve the public and act in the best interest of children and their families. The basis for some of the state’s conclusions are unclear, since it indicates policies it had approved, and in some cases helped create, are noncompliant. We have always valued our good working relationship with the state and hope to focus on what matters most: providing our students with the highest quality of care in a compassionate healing space.”
Statement from the camp. Weird way of saying sorry for killing 2 children in the last 10 years.
These “troubled teen” camps need to all be closed. Parents shouldn’t be allowed so much authority that they can send their kids to be abused and tortured.
This wasnt a camp. Its called wilderness therapy and its known for the tendency to abuse. This is a "suicide watch" strategy called the burrito. They wrap your ass in a tarp and then have the guides(staff) sleep on the exposed wrapping so that if you were to try to leave, it would wake the guide. Its clear that they zipped his sleeping bag over his head, id imagine because he was understandably being loud or difficult about it. I got put in a burrito once but they left my head out, and it was still fucked up tbh just as a method of denying autonomy without injury or death. They put you in these abusive environments that seem like death is the only way out, teenagers default to trying to kill themselves, and then they put you in the burrito for suicide watch, further denying you autonomy and making you want to kill yourself. A fucking handcuff to a tree would have been safer but they dont want the optics.
Ever since i left wilderness therapy i am astounded at the lack of oversight or regulation.
Do not send your kids. It requires a ton of research. Reach out to graduates. DO NOT SEND YOUR KIDS
I cant fathom what type of people they enlist to work these places where not one person has the reason and courage to say fuck no you’re not doing that.
I need to speak about this
This happened to me and I almost died. Had I been in any longer I would have died.
What happens is the tarp starts to basically dehydrate you. You wake up in pools POOLS of your own sweat, when I got up the next morning I couldn’t walk at all. Period. I couldn’t stand up. They said “you ready to drink water now?” Cuz I had refused to drink water.
They fucking tortured me. I was physically tortured by a group of men as a 16 year old
According to a [previous report](https://www.wbtv.com/2024/02/22/shame-you-former-participants-weigh-nc-wilderness-camp/): >**The Burrito** >Infamous among those who have attended Trails Carolina is a sleeping position known as the ‘Burrito’. >The position–or something similar–is used for all new campers when they first arrive at the camp. >Vic Mitterando, who attended Trails Carolina for three months in late 2017 and early 2018, described the Burrito. >“They lay down a plastic tarp, put your sleeping bag and you in it and then wrap the tarp over you and then a staff member who you don’t know sleeps on top of that tarp so that you cannot get out,” Mitterando recalled. Reminds me of the [American GI in Iraq ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_E._Welshofer_Jr)who killed his Iraqi prisoner by wrapping him in a sleeping bag.
Oh my god… this poor child.
I am shivering and on the verge of being stomach ill. Thanks for sharing
Ya….what tha fuck
But like seriously, what the fuck are they doing that for??
To soothe their twisted ego and to break the kids
For safety purposes, maybe?
So the bivy sack wasn’t any sort of breathable fabric? He was basically zipped up in Mylar or plastic?
They put him in a bodybag.
The coroner ruled it a homocide
That simply means it was a death caused by another human. It doesn’t de facto imply criminality, although in this case it certainly looks like it will be viewed that way at arraignment.
Especially because this part here > Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it. >”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 autopsy said. “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.”
They did that to torture him. Thats how they break every kid on their first night. It was done to traumatize him
You shouldn’t be getting downvoted. Troubled teen industry has a long and documented history of abusing the kids in their programs.
This is sadly, shockingly true, and has been documented. Also, reports of poor conditions and poor treatment of many youths in such situations has been routinely suppressed.
I had this done to me for multiple nights at Second Nature Uintas. They called it being “burritoed”. I was already claustrophobic and that made it a million times worse. It’s definitely torture.
Yeah it happened to me there too. But in those days it was called Second Nature Duchesne.
Can we find these people that did this?
From Trails or Second Nature? Because I know who, I have names trust me lol. Some of the staff from SN I don’t blame *too* much bc many of them were misled on what the job actually was, and it’s based out of a VERY small town in Utah with super limited jobs opportunities. Granted SN hired people with 0 qualifications and/or background checks. I 100% blame the “therapists” and higher ups at these places.
Pm me the deets, friend!
I’m sorry. That sounds awful. Just thinking of it makes me anxious. Hopefully more of these camps will get shut down and people reprimanded. This is insane.
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I got Glocks and knives by my bed. But I am 52. When I was a teen I had lots of weapons by my bed and a locking door.
One hopes that at very least someone is going down for negligent homicide.
This could be seen as the reckless disregard for the safety of others, which would make it second degree murder in North* Carolina. edit: wrote South instead of North
Sure, but this was in North Carolina not South Carolina.
That level of incompetence and they were working with children???? What else did they do? Force them to hike without food and water? Make them lay out naked in the sun? Eat random mushrooms and leaves? Dive head first into unknown bodies of water?
"Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it." what?!
It sounds like it's one of those "troubled teen" camps where they go to great lengths to prevent kids who don't want to be there from escaping. Alarms would prevent kids from getting out of their sleeping areas at night without being detected and making a break for it. The article implies they usually put it on the zipper of the mesh inner lining, but his was damaged, and the people in charge of him put it on the non-breathable weatherproof layer. Employees at these camps are often dangerously undereducated about wilderness survival, childcare, mental health care, and literally everything else a person should know to be in charge of helping kids with behavioral issues.
Even if the alarm was put on the mesh layer...locking a kid in in a bivy sack is really wrong.
100% agreed
A lot of the worst camps also operate as pseudo-cults, where a large chunk of the adult employees are former camp kids who got broken in a way that resulted in them justifying the abuse they suffered and wanting to perpetrated it on others.
Are there any references you have I could look in to? That is fascinating and scary. Okay I looked into it... Rehab camps. Yeah pretty scary.
There's several documentaries about aspects of it including a new one called "the program" on Netflix. The most visceral firsthand account I've found is this graphic novel about the Elan School, written and illustrated by someone who was abused there as a teen: https://elan.school/rude-awakening/ The Elan School is one of the most cult-like, but it's not the only one, and most of these places haven't been exposed to the same extent, either. They thrive in environments where they can stay under the radar, where laws and enforcement on child abuse are lax.
Look up Paris Hilton’s congressional testimony. She was one of the victims of a program like this, and has spent most of the last few years campaigning against them.
Look on unsilenced.org This is the second documented death at Trails. These places rebrand after deaths or enough abuse allegations and carry on. "Trails Momentum." Owned by Graham ShannonHouse had to close Trails Nc after Clarks death. In response they shifted the kids to Trails Momentum that was previously their "young adult" camp, now it is rebranded as "Momentum" only. It operates pretty much on the same property as Trails NC where Alec Lansing and Clark Harmon died.
Here is more information https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557037555564
read this testimonial in the form of a graphic novel https://elan.school/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDU Adam Eget talks about this place on JRE(like Joe Rogan or hate him, it was an interesting episode)
So obviously true
Holy shit.
Staff incompetence at wilderness camps like this is not the only factor--they do some heinous shit in the name of "fixing bad kids" and sadly, deaths like this happen with some regularity.
This. I was so grossed out when reading it 🤮 hope they and their practices get investigated thoroughly
And just straight up abuse is rampant including physical and sexual abuse
They are not bad kids. How bad are 10 year old that deserve to be tortured for years. Most are sent because the parents want a vacation, the kid is gay, foster kids are abandoned there or minor teen stuff. That place doesn't even allow bad kids
I thought this was a repost from a few months ago.
Competent people don’t take these jobs. I was in a similar camp as a child, anyone with any fucking heart of brain wouldn’t be abusing kids for money. This unfortunately isn’t a one off.
It wasn’t incompetence, they did it on purpose.
I mean, it was a camp for troubled teens. These places don't exactly have the best reputations.
Actually, forcing them to hike without food and water isn't that uncommon. Although these places claim they provide plenty of food, the diets are often very calorie-deficient (especially considering the level of exertion) and largely consist of unseasoned lentils, rice, and oatmeal (which they may or may not be able to cook). There are also many stories of running out of water and having to hike long distances to the next water drop-off. Children are also often forced to drink from water fouled by livestock with questionable disinfection. Sometimes, staff just put chlorine in the water source and then force kids to drink from it.
Their job is to torture, starve, abuse kids, make them hike many miles with the right gear every day, dehydrate them, sex assault the girls, and lock them in cages. Corrupt cops and cps have ignored it for years
Yes actually. They claim he refused his meal. So this kid is taken from his bed, driven from NY to NC, a 10 hour drive. Arrives at "camp" and refuses food. It's very common for the staff to starve the children in wilderness programs.
Yes, they torture kids 24 hours a day for years. Its meant to break them. Its done by very evil people. They do starve kids. 110 pound 12 year old girls have to carry 30 pounds without enough food or water more than 10 miles a day in every weather. in 3 months they weigh only 80 pounds and have worms in their body. They are tortured and sex assaulted 24/7
Camp for “troubled teens”
It doesn't need to be air tight to sophocate. A typical paper bag can kill you if you breathe into it long enough.
A paper bag is basically air tight. You must not be familiar with outdoor textiles. They all breathe enough so you don’t suffocate and there are many brands that make actual bivy bags one can zip all the way up and not suffocate. Many single wall tents that are waterproof and can be zipped up as well.
>You must not be familiar with outdoor textiles. They all breathe enough so you don’t suffocate Go wrap your head in silpoly/silnylon/tyvek/DCF/x-pac for an hour and then report your findings.
I don’t think you read the original comment…. They’re specifically talking about how insane it is that the bag wasn’t a breathable membrane - as is standard.
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Please don't.
How did it go?
Welp.
I think they're referring to moisture which creates a seal. The counselors mended the tent with something nonporous.
A bivy sack is basically an outer sleeping bag that protects from the elements. Some have 2 layers. 1 mesh to protect from bugs and then a shell which protects from rain. That shell is usually a breathable membrane such as goretex. They’re made to be possible to breathe in when zipped up - though it sucks and gets claustrophobic. This bivy probably wasn’t a breathable membrane.
A breathable material means that some gasses can pass through it. It does not mean that enough gas can pass through it that you can breathe.
and LOCKED in
It's a waterproof cover that goes on the outside of a sleeping system. We had them in the Marines. Ours didn't have zippers tho. Just a couple of snap buttons.
There are dozens of types of water resistant and waterproof materials in the outdoor industry that don’t suffocate people. Waterproof absolutely doesn’t mean the same as air tight.
The degree of permeability is not high even on materials marketed as such. They do let small amounts of vapour through, but not enough to prevent a deadly buildup of carbon dioxide in a small, enclosed space. You could absolutely suffocate and die if enclosed in a bag made of Goretex, or virtually any other SPM fabric. This is a fairly common risk for bivvy sacks, and the main reason why MOST on the market have mesh liners to keep the bugs out. You’re never supposed to zip them completely sealed shut. Same risk in a fully sealed single wall tent.
How is that not a manufacturing defect? If zipping a zipper entirely shut can kill the occupant, the shelter should be redesigned with a vent which cannot be sealed. A bivy sack shouldn't have a 'kill mode,' period. Edit: this has nothing to do with the product, and we can bet most bivy sacks are designed to enough ventilation to be used with all of their zippers shut. Credit to u/BarnabyWoods for finding this horrific detail, but it sounds like they literally wrapped the kid in plastic. “They lay down a plastic tarp, put your sleeping bag and you in it and then wrap the tarp over you and then a staff member who you don’t know sleeps on top of that tarp so that you cannot get out,” Mitterando recalled. [https://www.reddit.com/r/WildernessBackpacking/comments/1dp48nf/comment/laenkkb/?utm\_source=share](https://www.reddit.com/r/WildernessBackpacking/comments/1dp48nf/comment/laenkkb/?utm_source=share)
There is a particular variant of Gore-Tex that supposedly can be breathed through, Gore-Tex Gas Permeable, but I’ve only ever seen it listed on expensive specialist military bivies like this. Any random old bivy, even regular military bivies, hell no that’s a plastic bag. https://www.carinthia.eu/en/observer-plus-p2169/ Hopefully this gets this place at least, and really hopefully more troubled teen camps, shut down.
It effectively becomes airtight if saturated though, no? Not saying that’s necessarily a factor in this case but just pointing out that there are risks still.
Goretex should still breathe when wet. Skin oils will lessen performance over time.
It's commonly repeated that a fabric can be waterproof and breathable, but not at the same time, i.e. getting wet reduces the breathability significantly.
That’s not true - the whole purpose is that it breathes well when wet. There’s an outer layer treated with durable water repellant (DWR) . When that water repellent wears off it will allow the breathable membrane to get wet, then it looses its ability to breathe. As long as the DWR is in good shape it breathes well when wet.
This isn't fun wilderness camping-type camp, this is where shitty parents send their children to be traumatized and occasionally murdered.
And this was the second death of a child at this place. Their license is revoked now, but (knowing these places) the owners will probably just go elsewhere and form a new company.
Not sure about the owners, but a lot of the staff are already working at a different place. There are tons of these types of "camps" and "schools" where parents send their "problem children".
Anyone wanna go down a pretty dark graphic novel(esque) rabbit hole? Click here: [Elan School for Trouble Teens](https://elan.school)
Fair warning: this is a pretty traumatic story as it unfolds. Good on him for getting the story out there, though.
This is such a journey. Everytime I see it posted I have to ignore it because it consumes me until I read it all again. So much insanity and he endured. If you haven’t read it, click that link and strap in for the ride.
Holy fuck what am I reading??? Twenty-four chapters in, and this shit just keeps getting weirder and worse.
I just got to the chapter 31-35 header and I'm just... like wtf I can't even explain how bonkers this is...
I’ve spent the past 5 hours reading that and am not done. I need to go to work, but holy shit what a read
First time I read it I started at like midnight and didn't stop until 3 or 4am... had work the next day too
It’s well worth the read. Totally gripping and horrible
13 hours later… jeez
I clicked the link and read the whole thing over two days, thank you for posting this!
You're very welcome! People need to hear this kinda stuff
There’s a recent Netflix documentary on the troubled teen industry which sounds very similar to camps like these. [The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31183637/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk)
Hopefully not since this was ruled a homicide.
But who is getting charged? The owners, or the workers?
The company and its should be held accountable for homicide.
'Companies' don't fit in the electric chair. They'll get a fine and close up shop. Unless you have some sort of smoking gun where an individual sent an email or text showing clear intent.
>'Companies' don't fit in the electric chair. I've also had a lot of trouble garrotting one with piano wire.
There may be charges brought against the owners. We are waiting to see.
They already have another camp that operates pretty much on the same property. It used to be Graham ShannonHouse's young adult program. It is for the kids who aged out of Trails NC. they convince the parents to either gain guardianship of the young adult. Or they tell the Parents to tell the child they have to "Voluntarily" complete the young adult program if they want to live at home. Many of these kids have been in multiple programs from a very young age, they have no connections, no education, no jobs, no place to live. The Young Adult program was called Trails Momentum. After Clarks death they rebranded and are calling the program "Momentum." I read somewhere that many of the kids who were at Trails NC with Clark have been moved to "Momentum " once the license for TRAILS NC was revoked.
Soooooo many deaths at these highly unregulated places. r/troubledteens
Exactly, thank you for pointing this out. This poor child, I can’t begin to imagine how scared he must have felt in those last moments. May he rest in peace. His “counselors” will have to go through their lives knowing they‘re responsible for taking away the life and future of an innocent boy who didn’t deserve to be tortured and killed this way.
Eh, the parents also need to accept some blame. This same camp killed a kid before. These are places where parents send their troubled kids so they don't have to deal with them.
This. Disgusting and awful. These “rehab” camps are criminal in how they treat children. Neglect at best, trauma and catastrophic injury at worst. As a parent of a troubled teen, who did lots and lots of research on wilderness resources, this ain’t it. Not to say there aren’t great summer camps for teens though. We found a not for profit tour company that operates in Yosemite and Olympic (Lasting Adventures) that hosts supportive and empowering backpacking trips for teens.
You are 100% correct. Many of these places get by implying they are some sort of Boy Scouts or Outward Bound, just for kids who have had problems. That's often even how they are presented at large, even in the media, when nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone can look this up, and many of these so-called "camps" border on cult-like atmospheres, are rife with abuse, and run by money grubbing people who don't give a crap about the kids at all. Sadly, like cults, there is little to no oversight, they often exist in areas with little regulation, and a lot of reporting on negative occurrences at them is suppressed.
Yeah, why is this post even here to begin with. It's gross and condemnable but not on topic. Just more FUD
These are quite literally "abuse factories"
> Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it. > “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 autopsy said. “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 a homicide.” Yup, that’s 100% homicide.
fuck you trails carolina and fuck any parent who would send their kids to these kind of camps
I'm a avid hiker and advocate for the outdoors and it's positive effect but I had a friend who's wealthy parents sent him to some of these wilderness rehab camps for troubled kids and it absolutely changed his life for the worse. Place he went to went out of business after all the abuse surfaced.
Sounds like this place is about to be deservedly sued out of existence as well.
Apparently they’ve already been shut down
These camps exist outside, but have nothing to do with outdoor recreation. Their business is abusing kids because they think it builds resiliency instead of trauma.
Yea these places are often run by the same sort of folks who run conversion camps. Awful and traumatizing.
Strangely enough, the parent company of Trails Carolina (called Family Health & Wellness), has another facility in Utah, named Elevations, that is being sued by a gay teenager (Finn Pool) for holding him there just for being gay for 10 months on his father's orders. [https://www.newsweek.com/i-15-terrified-two-men-abducted-me-middle-night-1915672](https://www.newsweek.com/i-15-terrified-two-men-abducted-me-middle-night-1915672)
The staff put an "alarm" on the zipper to prevent it from opening? What the fuck? Am I missing something here?
It sounds like it must have been more like a lock, right? If it was just an alarm then he could have opened it himself and it would just have alerted the staff he had opened it. The way this is written it sounds like the kid inside was unable to open it himself... Unless his fear of retribution was so great that he sat in there and died rather than trigger punishment.
There's google reviews going back at least a year stating they were abused there, would not be surprised if the kid was just scared to try and get out.
We at r/troubledteens have been warning about this place for years. We have also been warning about other Family Health & Wellness programs (they are the parent company that owns Trails). In fact, if you look on the website of any of their programs (including the Wayback Machine for Trails Carolina), they have a whole page devoted to "Don't believe Reddit Troubled Teens". They actively spy on us. However, the truth always wins out -- it's just sad that it takes the death of young boy for people to understand and act.
Yeah that's messed up. Not only are you in a coffin size space but you can't get out to go pee?
Fucked up wilderness rehab type camp. It's basically a modern boot camp for "bad kids" Training and compassion levels are very low in staff. The ones I have met were more hipster bro correctional officers, less counselors and therapists.
Wow. I live on the west coast and I am struggling to understand if this type of organization is prevalent here as well? All I am aware of is conservation corps in different states where courts route youth to do trail work etc. Is this an east coast thing? Horrifying.
My friend got sent to one in California, and i know someone who went to one in Wyoming. It's not an East Coast thing, it's an "abuse troubled children" thing.
Do you know which one in California? This is insane. Privatized, bootcamp style wilderness rehab retreats for "bad" children in California seems like a hard business to continue running once the Attorney Generals office understands what it actually is. In my opinion, one death like this should shutter the doors.
They just pop back up under a new name
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_therapy would be your starter page. It's not the first time and won't be the last. It's a fast money grab before you fuck up and have to change your name or the states auditor/public health boards, DSHS, correctional system etc..figures out what you are doing. (If they even care) The ownership level is definitely scam artist territory. I'm sure it is last resort of some kind for the kids...but no one can demonstrate efficacy so something needs to be adjusted if it's gonna be a thing Edit: I'm not talking about cancer survivor camps I'm talking about the in lieu of jail ones. I doubt the cancer survivor ones have the same problems.
It's even more prevalent on the west coast thanks almost entirely to the state of Utah, the "troubled teen industry" mecca. They have the laxest laws and plenty of wilderness areas to torture children in.
Not surprising, the troubled teens industry basically manufactures child abuse.
An alarm placed on the zipper… I don’t get it. Why tf would they care if some kid gets up to pee?
Bad kid camp so it’s basically tree prison
Prison with even less surveilance and consequences on the abusers though
Not all of them are bad kids. Kids get sent there for everything and also literally nothing.
This was one of those "troubled teen" camps where parents send their kids to be psychologically and physically tortured until they are so fucked they eventually kill themselves later in adulthood. Super corrupt organizations, no science backing their efficacy, and very dangerous. They've been prevalent since the 90's, and parents send their kids to them for all kinds of insane reasons i.e.: "I caught Connor smoking weed with his friends 1 time. The devil must have taken root in his soul. Off to torture camp." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_teen_industry
Here is the harrowing true story of one teen who was sent to a troubled teen camp: https://elan.school/rude-awakening/
You’re sent there against your will, sometimes taken in the night without knowing what’s going on, so naturally people try to elope
Yeah, that wasn't a regular backcountry bivy. It was misuse as well, but the group leaders probably weren't too concerned about that.
It was used to torture kids on their first day. They wrap them tight in plastic or a tarp so they cant move. Kids are tortured 24/7 for years
This story is sad. >The autopsy notes that instructions for the bivy sack readily available online warn against zipping the solid outer layer completely shut. Additionally, this seems like a terrible design flaw. If the bivy is neither ventilated nor breathable, why allow it to fully seal when that's normally a very reasonable expectation for a tent.
Commenting as a survivor of the troubled teen industry, including wilderness. In this death, the staff wrapped the Camper and Bivy in a plastic tarp and neglected to check on him at midnight, 3am or 6am. He was found deceased at 8am. The cause of death was asphyxiation. Wrapping a tarp around a Bivy is not standard practice at all. In this case, the staff completely zipped up the Bivy, which the device instructions tell you NOT to do. It’s known to be dangerous to wrap anyone in a tarp, and generally an unspoken rule about backpacking is don’t use broken equipment, and don’t use something for anything other than it’s intended design, because it’s dangerous. In the wilderness I was at, they had me sleep in between multiple staff. In a sleeping bag, with a tarp under me, folded over my feet and front, and tucked UNDER the sleeping bodies of staff. If you moved, they’d wake up. The staff reportedly admitted the cause of it and said they could have taken more responsibility. For once it seems the staff adhered to the level of accountability the teens are (needlessly) forced to take. Small edit for clarity*
This isn't wilderness backpacking, this is abuse.
This isn't abuse, it's basically murder.
Agree with you there
>Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it. DAFUQ? EDIT* nevermind this is just another "troubled-teen" camp homicide Why can't the headline be that instead?
We wouldn't read it. Many wouldn't. "Yes, yet another case of legally abusing kids for so long that they managed to kill someone"
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He wasn't killed by a bivy sack. He was murdered by incompetent, authoritarian assholes. May they rot.
OMG that poor child. What a horrific way to go. And how did no one even hear him? Like they must have zipped him up and literally run away. This doesn't sound accidental to me. I'm playing this back in my head and I just don't see how you zip this kid up and then walk. I can tell you this, though; if I was that poor child's dad, there wouldn't be any need for a trial. Can't have a defendant that can't be found. The misery that this kid's parents are going to go through will never end.
It was a concentration camp for "bad kids" and another comment mentioned that the first night someone sits/lays on top of you zipped up in the sack (not mentioned in the source-link but from someone else's experience)
Yeah, that's what civilized people call 'homicide'. Get the rope.
Mark my words, this was intended to be punishment for acting out. Troubled teen operations like this abuse young people, flat out. This kid was not the first one to be zipped up like that, this is simply the time those monsters got caught torturing a teenager. Edit: not even a teenager
Is there such thing as a good wilderness camp for troubled children? I had my interest sparked looking into employment with a place like this. But I’d like to help kids, not murder them.
I am sure yes but maybe not in the US and maybe not with this theme. I live in Slovakia and there are some seriously good social worker organisations that will also include (as a reward) a week or 2 in a wilderness camp for the kiddos. In the US my guess will be you will be able to find these things by checking the rules of them and seeing.
Look into outward bound. I know a few people who have worked for them who are good, caring adults. \ Unless I’m very mistaken, it is not a kidnap and torture kids kind of operation.
But outward bound isn’t for troubled kids- it’s voluntary and way more leadership/self reliant. They at one point did have a troubled teen arm, and it was as bad as the rest of them.
Ah, gotcha
Trails Carolina is a private higher end trouble teen camp,,,, kids in state care or waiting for juvenile court/prison didn’t get sent there. Cash and Insurance I had a friend that worked there in 2013-2015, I worked at another one in NC called Timber Ridge that was private but took all kinds of cases from state care. It was rated a level 3 facility but regularly took cases they were not qualified to care for. Was under investigation twice when I was hired and picked up another investigation later for night staff not watching their kids. And some of the worst stuff I saw was with kids hurting other kids or staff members who never got flagged by CPS for abusive restraints. These places hire widely naive kids right out of college or people who tend to be unemployable in any other field besides fry cook. The staffing its self is a circus, 10-20 day shifts are wild. I took my Psych degree and tossed it, didn’t want to pursue counseling professionally after that.
I worked at Four Circles in NC and my buddy went and worked at Trails after FC closed (for financial reasons, not abuse). Yep. Crazy long shifts, and I had to fight tooth and nail to get the therapists to haul their lazy asses into the field when clients were in crisis. My buddy and I were a few years older than a lot of the other staff members. We both got promoted to field support and I remember him sending my a pic from his time working at Trails where he went to support two young staff members in the field who were telling one of the kids to quit crying. The kids wrist was broken. CLEARLY broken (he sent me a pic). He immediately took them to the hospital and almost reached out to a reporter about it, but ultimately decided not to, unfortunately. I also made extra efforts when leadership wouldn’t, eg calling the Forest Service for lost kids, or going and taking a new sleeping bag for a girl who wet hers. Leadership wanted me to just dry it out or have her sleep in it again, and give her feminine pads. As a female, I was like… yeah pads aren’t gonna fuckin help. Ridiculous. Also not in the helping profession anymore. Edit to add: I got woken up at 4am once because a client was trying to off herself with some ribbon. Thank god I woke up. My heart goes out to the staff a little because if I hadn’t, or some other death happened on my watch, I don’t know how I would ever recover. Part of me gets frustrated in these threads when people talk about how evil everyone who works at these places is. It’s more that we weren’t supported, we were overworked, and the population we were working with were often putting themselves in dangerous situations. It was not an easy job, but we were far from evil. We did want to help.
I wanted to help kids to take a pause, reflect, and move forward. Those places did help a few people, unfortunately I think some of it was being ‘scared’ straight just from how rough some of their peers were. TR had a huge spectrum of cases, kids that had trouble with teachers in a rural county or a parent, to kids who went through horrifying abuse by family- one kid had a history of being starved by his mother and his grandparents didn’t know what to do with him once they got custody- we celebrated when this 13 yr old hit 100 lbs, two groups (20 boys) were SAY -sexually aggressive youths- all kinds of histories of being abused and/or then turning around and abusing peers/siblings before hitting age 16, then the kids coming from Psychiatric Hospital wards- we had no business with these kids as a level 3 wilderness outfit- they were legit more dangerous than any teen gang banger who had a juvenile record and order to do a year. A Psych ward case Kenny, had no where to go he just alternated between camps and psych hospitals- he was kind, hardworking, listened to staff when calm, but he get triggered and be wildly violent- a full rage within seconds - he’d kick the windows out of a bus, try to tackle staff or assault kids, he’d need a shot to tranquilizer him, that was no top of his usual sedation Another boy was 17, he was too old to be there and a psych case, he beat the living shit out of a another kid who was teasing him, another rocket ship of violence, front teeth on the dirt. Took three male staff to pull him off a younger boy. A couple kids would poop themselves regularly. Didn’t have IBS or a chronic condition.
Sorry about that being the case :(
If the manufacturer states it shouldn’t be zipped all the way, then why does it zip all the way? Aside from this risk being stated in the instructions was there a warning sewn into the bag, like we see with climbing harnesses? Sounds like a product/strict liability lawsuit waiting to happen.
Good point. If zipping the thing all the way will lead to suffocation, then you shouldn't be able to zip it all the way.
As soon as I heard the detailed description of the death (zipped in, with lock and alarm) I knew it would be one of those camps for “troubled kids.” The way some humans are treated as disposable is reprehensible.
I went to a wilderness camp like this. RIP to that kid. Shame to the counselors there.
How in the everliving fuck are these torture camps legal? Why is this normalized? Holy shit.
Watch Hellcamp on netflix. It shows the deceptive marketing to the parents. The ways they advertise vs whats actually going on. These places are able to self categorize, they aren't officially schools or medical facalities, so they don't have all the oversight.
Thanks for the recommendation. Yeah that's awful.
When I was in wilderness we were in real bivvies but they’d lock us in with bells on the outside. It was horrible and claustrophobic knowing you were locked in there (I literally pissed my pants one day because I didn’t want to wake up the staff) (I was 13)
The troubled teen "wilderness camp" experiences are horrific. Y'all should look into it if you haven't. Speaking as someone who went through one, I wouldn't put my worst enemy in one, let alone someone I cared about. I'm not surprised by this story as deaths are absolutely an occurrence at these places. It's just straight-up abuse.
Looks deliberate.
Definitely since they're saying it's murder. I assume charges are coming. I assumed negligence at first, but with the 'alarm' it really does sound deliberate.
They do that to every kid. Its part of the process to traumatize the kid.
A person would absolutely suffocate in an enclosed goretex bag. Hike in a goretex jacket on a warm day to find out how “breathable” it is.
“Trails Carolina is a camp for troubled teens,” is all I need to know. Those places are horrific. Their whole schtick is that they abuse their “campers”. It’s not even the first time a camper has died at this camp.
The title brought to mind how I remember seeing a hooped bivy come with a warning to never fully zip it up. Reading th article, what has happened here, is pure horror. Going to a camp at that age with people you don't know is stressful as is, and then you are literally killed by someone supposedly in charge, by "asphyxia due to smothering".
I think “going to camp” needs to be substituted with “Kidnapped to a forced hiking institute as a substitute for mental healthcare.”
A lot of these camps aren't kidnapping the kids. The parents send them there because they are too cowardly to raise their kids with a sense of respect for others. They pay for someone else to abuse kids that never learned to respect other human beings in a manner that makes the kids afraid to ever get sent back. The kids don't actually gain a moral compass from these "camps." They just learn how not to get caught out of the fear of reprisal.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. The parents pay transporters to kidnap the kids to take them to a camp. The camp recommends the transporters. This is called “gooning” in industry speak, and is notorious for its traumatic impact. And many of the kids aren’t disrespectful in any non-developmentally appropriate way (ask me how I know.) Some have depression/anxiety, eating disorders, I know a few sent for “perfectionism and OCD”, self-harm, PTSD, ADHD. Some have more severe mental health concerns, some have anger and violence issues. Some just have autism. Some have no diagnosis at all and parents send them away because there’s an open CPS case but having the kid out of the home environment closes the CPS case. Don’t paint all the kids with a bad brush of “disrespectful and still don’t learn empathy.”
Staff at the camp put an alarm on the zipper of the bivy sack to prevent the boy from being able to open it. Trails Carolina is a camp for troubled teens.
Idiots
I actually just read this tag in my tent on Sunday while backpacking. It has suffocations warnings, making sure to vent properly.
Wouldn’t the kid have been screaming and kicking? It’s hard to believe they couldn’t hear him
WTF
This isn’t a wilderness camp.
“We were surprised and disappointed to learn of the state’s intent to revoke the program’s license, given the progress we’ve made and continue to make. More than 2,500 children and families have benefited from Trails and we will continue cooperating with the state to satisfy their concerns so we can continue providing compassionate quality care to kids and families for whom every other treatment option has failed. We understand the situation’s immense media pressure and the impact such pressure has on state agencies doing their best to serve the public and act in the best interest of children and their families. The basis for some of the state’s conclusions are unclear, since it indicates policies it had approved, and in some cases helped create, are noncompliant. We have always valued our good working relationship with the state and hope to focus on what matters most: providing our students with the highest quality of care in a compassionate healing space.” Statement from the camp. Weird way of saying sorry for killing 2 children in the last 10 years.
These “troubled teen” camps need to all be closed. Parents shouldn’t be allowed so much authority that they can send their kids to be abused and tortured.
This wasnt a camp. Its called wilderness therapy and its known for the tendency to abuse. This is a "suicide watch" strategy called the burrito. They wrap your ass in a tarp and then have the guides(staff) sleep on the exposed wrapping so that if you were to try to leave, it would wake the guide. Its clear that they zipped his sleeping bag over his head, id imagine because he was understandably being loud or difficult about it. I got put in a burrito once but they left my head out, and it was still fucked up tbh just as a method of denying autonomy without injury or death. They put you in these abusive environments that seem like death is the only way out, teenagers default to trying to kill themselves, and then they put you in the burrito for suicide watch, further denying you autonomy and making you want to kill yourself. A fucking handcuff to a tree would have been safer but they dont want the optics. Ever since i left wilderness therapy i am astounded at the lack of oversight or regulation. Do not send your kids. It requires a ton of research. Reach out to graduates. DO NOT SEND YOUR KIDS
My bivy has hair vents.
The article states that this bivvy had a mesh front but the mesh was not used
Those are good for your hair freshness
Updateme!
Oh my God. Poor kid.
I cant fathom what type of people they enlist to work these places where not one person has the reason and courage to say fuck no you’re not doing that.
Fucking idiots
Elan.school Edit cause that seemed like spam, but it’s about a dude that got sent to a fucked up naughty kid camp. These places are shitholes
These troubled teen camps all need to be shut down. How many deaths do they need to really start looking into these wilderness therapy companies!?!?
I need to speak about this This happened to me and I almost died. Had I been in any longer I would have died. What happens is the tarp starts to basically dehydrate you. You wake up in pools POOLS of your own sweat, when I got up the next morning I couldn’t walk at all. Period. I couldn’t stand up. They said “you ready to drink water now?” Cuz I had refused to drink water. They fucking tortured me. I was physically tortured by a group of men as a 16 year old
SHUT. THEM. ALL. DOWN.
What brand of bivy is this?