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April 15, 2005
Report
Criticizes Boot Camp Death
KANSAS CITY, Mo.
-- A state report on the death last year of a California teenager at
a northwest Missouri boot camp found fault with access to medical
care there and said records may have been falsified. Officials had
asked the Missouri Department of Social Services to investigate the
November death of Roberto Reyes, 15, of Santa Rosa, Calif. The youth
died at the Thayer Learning Center in Kidder, less than two weeks
after arriving there.
An autopsy cited
complications from rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle fibers, and
said the condition was probably due to a spider or insect bite.
In a wrongful
death lawsuit filed in February in Buchanan County Circuit Court,
the boy's parents alleged that he was subjected to physical exertion
and abuse that caused or contributed to his death. Reyes' parents
also claim their son would have lived had he received competent and
timely medical care.
The state report
was given last week to Jason Canoy, the Caldwell County prosecutor,
who released it to The Kansas City Star. Canoy said he hadn't
decided whether he would take any action.
"There are some
alarming parts about it," he said of the 275-page report. "But I
have not made a decision as to who I would file charges on or if I
would file charges at all."
The state team
that investigated said the boot camp apparently "failed ... to
provide access to appropriate medical evaluation and/or treatment."
Further, it said, "interviews and evidence also suggest significant
contradictions and possible deliberate falsification of written
records."
Ed Proctor, an
attorney for Thayer, was unavailable for comment Thursday, but has
told The Star that "every child at Thayer has immediate access to
medical care at any time."
In interviews
excerpted in the state report, owners John and Willa Bundy, along
with other people connected with the camp, said they didn't know or
think the boy was sick before he died. Willa Bundy also said she
hadn't read the records in question until she was interviewed by a
state investigator in late February.
At least 10
people identified as Thayer employees gave the state investigators
descriptions of the boy, one saying he appeared lazy, another saying
his attitude was bad. Some said he struggled to keep up with the
rigorous exercise, that he complained of sore muscles, needed
assistance walking and at times used others as "a crutch."
At least four
said they never saw or were told anything to suggest Roberto was
sick. But one drill sergeant said she eventually came to think he
might be sick, and at some point relayed her opinion to Dorothy
Steele, identified in the report as the facility's medical officer.
The report said Steele, also the general manager of the kitchen
facilities, is not a registered nurse and that an EMT license that
she had expired in 2003.
Steele told
investigators she treated Reyes on Nov. 1 for blisters on his feet.
Besides sore arm and leg muscles, had no other medical complaints,
she said.
Former employee
Sarah Mackey, who resigned in December, told investigators her
duties included filing daily "shift notes" about students and
activities. The report said that after Roberto died, she read notes
from the days leading up to his death and "stated that every day the
log sheets indicated that Roberto was getting worse and worse and
worse."
Mackey told the
investigators that Willa Bundy later took files of the shift notes,
asked for 10 blank forms and went into her office. When Mackey later
reviewed faxed copies of shift notes sent to the state by an
attorney for the boot camp, she "stated they were inaccurate and
incomplete, compared to the shift notes she had seen and read in the
office."
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