Western NC camp fights to keep state health dept. license after death of NY child
A high-end outdoor therapy camp is trying to stop the state from revoking its license after the Feb. 3 death of a 12-year-old child.
Trails Carolina, based in the Transylvania County community of Lake Toxaway more than an hour from Asheville, has submitted a plan of correction to state regulators, a spokesperson with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services told the Citizen Times April 12. The child is the second to die at the camp, which has also been sued in federal court by former campers who said staff failed to protect them from sexual assault.
"(The Division of Health Service Regulation) has received a Plan of Correction and a written statement from Trails Carolina explaining the actions it has taken to correct the noncompliance identified by DHSR," spokesperson Kandice Scarberry said. "DHSR will carefully review the POC and the statement pursuant to GS 150B-3(b)." That is the state act giving a licensed mental health facility the opportunity to show is correcting deficiencies and argue for retention of its license.
Scarberry said there was no timeline for when the revocation decision would be made. She said the state received the camp's plan April 5.
The camp had 10 days to submit the plan and other statements after the March 28 state notice of intent to revoke its license. In the notice, Robin Sulfridge, chief of the Mental Health Licensure and Certification Section, said the camp had endangered the "health, safety and welfare of clients."
"The statutes and rules determined to be out of compliance for the March 21, 2024 survey and upon which this agency’s decision is based are set out in the enclosed Statement of Deficiencies," Sulfridge said. The rule citations included failing to use the "least restrictive alternative" when dealing with campers, violating incident response requirements and failing to protect campers from "harm, abuse, neglect or exploitation."
Camp officials had said they were surprised by the move to revoke their license given what they said was the progress they had made.
"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," camp spokesperson Wendy D'Alessandro said in a March 29 statement, a day after the revocation notification.
"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," D'Allessandro said.
Along with the revocation notice, Sulfridge said the state would also assess a $18,000 fine.
Criminal investigation on hold
The camp charges an average of $66,000 for an 83-day outdoor experiential mental health treatment program. It is one of two licensed residential therapeutic camps in North Carolina, according to a state data base of nearly 4,000 licensed mental health facilities.
Along with the action taken by state health regulators, Transylvania County sheriff's deputies are engaged in a criminal probe that is on hold while they wait for a medical examiner's findings and an FBI forensic analysis of camp computers, said John Nicholson, spokesperson for Sheriff Chuck Owenby.
The camp had been closed by state regulators on a temporary status after the camper from New York City was found dead the morning after arriving.
The boy, a resident of the wealthy Upper East Side neighborhood, was brought to the camp Feb. 2, according to a death certificate and search warrants. Per camp policy the boy spent his first night on the bunk house floor in a sleeping bag inside a bivy sack, a type of one-person shelter, Hunt said.
The boy experienced a panic attack and was checked on throughout the night, according to a warrant. He was found dead at 7:45 a.m. The search warrants described the boy as being found with foam coming from his mouth, a possible sign of having ingested poison, deputies said.
State regulators and deputies have said they were denied access to the other campers, something a Trails Carolina spokesperson said was done to protect the rights of the children and their parents.
The child was the second camper to die at Trails Carolina since 2014. That year Alec Lansing, 17, of Georgia was allowed to walk away from a campsite to use a latrine despite having been placed on a "Level 2" restrictive status that meant there was to be visual contact at all times. His body was found 12 days later not far from the campsite.
Two former campers sued in federal court alleging staff failed to stop other campers from sexually assaulting them.
In a 2023 suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of N.C. in Asheville Clara Mann said that happened to her in 2019 when she was 14 years old. Mann settled her suit Feb. 22 for an undisclosed amount.
Gertrude Siegel's suit filed this year in the same court is still ongoing. Siegel said she was assaulted in 2016 when she was 12 years old. Trails Carolina and a former staff member who is also a defendant, Derry O'Kane, filed April 10 motions asking the judge to dismiss the case.
More: WNC camper death: NC Health records show prior child death violations; delayed search
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Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Got a tip? Contact Burgess at jburgess@citizentimes.com, 828-713-1095 or on Twitter @AVLreporter. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Western NC camp contests loss of health license after NY child's death
