May 14, 2005
Counselors Fired After Death at
Georgia Camp
By Daniel E. Martin
Atlanta -- Five counselors at a
state-run camp for troubled youngsters have been fired and a sixth
resigned after a 13-year-old boy died while being restrained.
The counselors refused to give
Travis Parker his asthma inhaler about an hour before he stopped
breathing April 20 at the Appalachian Wilderness Camp in Cleveland,
Ga., said Gwen Skinner, director of the state division that oversees
the site.
In addition, some of the
counselors refused to take a polygraph test, and children at the
camp were not being fed at appropriate times, Skinner said.
The Georgia Bureau of
Investigation is looking into the boy's death. The autopsy results
have not been released.
Skinner stopped short of saying
whether the restraint used on the boy was inappropriate, but said
counselors will be given more training on how to deal with unruly
children. Officials have not said how the boy was restrained, but a
report obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week showed
that he was held face down from behind. That type of restraint has
been banned by one state department.
State records show that Travis was
restrained for about 90 minutes by counselors who said he was acting
belligerently, and during the first 10 or 15 minutes he asked for
his inhaler.
However, counselors did not give
him the inhaler because an emergency medical technician saw no
indications such as wheezing that he was having an asthma attack and
because the boy had a history of asking for his inhaler when he was
being restrained, according to records from the Department of Human
Resources, which runs the camp.
The boy went limp and died the
next day at a hospital.
|
