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Stiffer Rules Sought for Youth
Treks July 19, 2002
By Jacob Santini
ST. GEORGE -- Last Christmas Day,
Katie Lank was hiking in the desert of southwestern Utah as part of
a youth wilderness program for troubled teens. The 16-year-old from
Virginia lost her footing in an area called the "naming caves" and
fell about 70 feet into a crevasse. She died 19 days later in a Las
Vegas hospital.
Nearly seven months after Lank's
death, state officials sat down Monday with many of the providers
running Utah's nine wilderness programs to rewrite regulations in
order to prevent another teen from dying.
Two days earlier, Ian August, a
14-year-old from Texas, had collapsed and died during a hike in the
mountains west of Delta. He had just started at another wilderness
program, Skyline Journey.
By the end of Monday's meeting, the
somber officials proposed tightening about a third of the
regulations governing wilderness programs, many of them in direct
response to circumstances that allegedly contributed to the deaths
of Lank and August. Ultimately, a legislative committee will have to
approve the changes.
Preventing deaths in the programs
"is part of the reason we're here," Ken Stettler, the director of
the Office of Licensing for the Department of Human Services, told
the group of 21 gathered in St. George.
Since 1990, the state has
determined who gets and keeps wilderness program operating licenses.
Utah was the first state to regulate outdoor programs, and officials
who wrote Utah's regulations often help other states draft their
rules.
Lank was enrolled in Redrock Ranch
Academy of St. George. Because she may have been hiking unsupervised
in a dangerous area, licensing officials proposed a change requiring
that program managers map and mark areas that are off-limits because
the terrain poses too much of a risk.
During an investigation into her
death, the state found an array of problems with the program and
filed a notice of intent to revoke its license. The academy remains
open, however, pending administrative hearings allowing the
operators to contest the state's findings.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by
Lank's parents in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City has
incorporated the state's allegations in seeking to shut down the
program to support their wrongful-death claim.
One of those allegations is that
the academy's executive director and the field director -- a father
and son -- should have deemed the "naming caves" area as too
dangerous for the group to explore, according to the lawsuit. The
caves are at the bottom of a rocky butte that the group reportedly
was climbing when Lank fell.
The lawsuit also claims that nine
students headed out on the fatal hike with two staff members, fewer
than the required ratio of one staffer to four participants. Lank
and two boys left the group and were hiking unsupervised, another
vioation, according to the suit. at the group reportedly was
climbing when Lank fell.
The lawsuit also notes the two
staff members with the group on Dec. 25 were the least experienced
of the four in the area. One had only nine days of experience,
according to the lawsuit.
An attorney for Redrock Ranch
Academy could not be reached for comment Thursday, but the operators
have denied wrongdoing.
Although the Lanks' lawsuit alleges
additional deficiencies in staff training, changes to those
requirements proposed out of this week's meeting didn't necessarily
arise out of her death, Stettler said.
The proposed changes require staff
to demonstrate proficiency in 13 areas ranging from emergency
procedures, such as CPR, to compass navigation to report writing to
medical evacuation. The current regulations require staff members to
take courses on the subjects.
"If it takes someone 800 hours [to
demonstrate proficiency], it takes them 800 hours," Stettler told
the group. "They are still in training until they are proficient."
The proposed regulations also would
require staff members to complete 24 training days in the field
before they can supervise teens on their own. Currently, staff
members have to spend two months in training, but that does not
necessarily mean time in the field, Stettler said.
In response to August's death,
state officials proposed that programs meet at least every six
months with law enforcement and rescue crews in their area to
discuss emergency medical plans. That idea arose as Mark Wardle, the
program manager for the Nephi-based Skyline Journey, questioned why
it took the Millard County Sheriff's Office two hours to travel the
70 miles from Delta to the hiking trail near the Nevada border.
Wardle alleged dispatchers didn't
trust the global positioning satellite coordinates that he was
relaying.
Millard County Sheriff Ed Phillips
attributed the delay to the hikers' isolated location. He also said
that while his dispatchers had given a medical helicopter incorrect
coordinates, the chopper would not have been able to land safely
because the heat of the day had decreased air density. August, who
weighed 200 pounds and stood 5-feet, 3-inches, had hiked 1.3 miles
over three hours when he refused to go on. He sat under a tree for
two hours, then collapsed, Wardle has said. An emergency medical
technician on staff performed CPR, but the boy died two hours later.
Investigators are trying to determine what happened during those
final hours.
Phillips has said the state medical
examiner has tentatively said the death was heat-related. An
official cause of death is pending toxicology and other tests.
Wardle has said the temperature on
the hiking trail was under 95 degrees -- the maximum allowed by
regulations for such hikes -- when August died. "If heat is the
reason, we have to reduce [the limit] even more," Stettler said
Thursday.
http://www.sltrib.com/2002/jul/07192002/utah/754809.htm
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