What Happened Out Here? A death in the wilderness raises disturbing questions about boot camps for troubled teens When a Utah judge raps his gavel on May 22 to begin a preliminary criminal hearing into the death of 16-year-old Aaron Bacon, the key evidence for the prosecution will come from the waifish, longhaired teen himself. A rebellious kid who smoked a little marijuana and brought home too many C’s and D’s, Bacon was enrolled last winter by his parents, Robert and Sally Bacon of Instead, after only a few days in the stark and beautiful Escalante River Basin, Bacon felt his life slipping away. He didn’t know it, but he’d somehow developed a bleeding ulcer, and as the energy drained slowly from his body, the aspiring poet documented his final days with ever more faint and tortured scrawls in a notebook. They were days spent hiking and camping in the “I am in terrible condition here,” Bacon wrote ten days before his death. “I feel like I’m losing control of my body.” The journal is heartrending, but exactly what happened and who is to blame are still unclear. In the upcoming proceedings, the state of Utah hopes to prove that North Star’s two directors and seven of its employees should be tried on felony charges of abusing and neglecting a medically disabled child. Also, the Bacons have filed a civil suit against North Star, claiming Bacon is the third teenager to die in this country while participating in so-called wilderness therapy. The two other deaths also occurred in Utah, in 1990. In both cases Utah authorities concluded that neglect by program staff may have occurred, but there have been no criminal convictions. Meanwhile, a growing number of observers are left wondering whether something about Founded in 1990 by Bill Henry, a career camp counselor, and Lance Jagger, a former air force officer, North Star advertises itself as a tough-love solution to teens’ problems. An 11-day “acclimation” period is followed by 52 days in the desert, during which the boys and girls make long hikes between caches of food and occasionally go without food for up to two days at a time. Nevertheless, North Star’s Henry, who has no college-level training in teen counseling, maintains that his staff had no way of detecting the ulcer. “The medical examiner said we would not have seen these symptoms,” he says, adding that Bacon passed a physical exam on March 1. Indeed, state officials initially cleared North Star of any wrongdoing in Bacon’s death. It wasn’t According to affidavits filed in court by prosecutors, based on these journals and sworn testimony of some 50 witnesses, there’s reason to believe that Bacon’s death could have been prevented. The documents say that on March 11, Bacon, eight other teenagers, and three counselors, Jeff Hohenstein, Sonny Duncan, and Craig Fisher, set out from Escalante, Utah, on a six-week By March 31, Bacon was unable to take a step and had become incontinent. Finally, counselor Mike Hill, who has not been charged in the case, radioed base camp for someone to come get Bacon. A truck arrived and Bacon was helped into the cab. Soon after that, his heart stopped beating. The ulcer had eaten a hole in Bacon’s large intestine, leaking its contents into his abdominal cavity. According to his journals, he’d gone without food, except for prickly pear cactus and pine needle tea, for 11 of his last 20 days. In a month his weight had dropped from 135 pounds to 105. “He looked like a prisoner of war,” says Sally Bacon, describing a photograph of Aaron North Star has shut its doors temporarily. But even if the camp and its employees are cleared of charges, it may never lead another hike. The Utah Department of Human Services denies an operating license to any program targeted with significant allegations of abuse or neglect, regardless of criminal conviction, and that irks Henry. “The Bacons knew their boy was a heavy, heavy Meanwhile, the Bacons are crusading for tougher licensing of the multimillion-dollar wilderness therapy industry. Partly in response, 50 or so camps have joined to form a National Association of Therapeutic Wilderness Camps and have written guidelines for members to follow. Still, things may get worse before they get better. “Besides parents looking for a place to put their |
What Happened Out Here?
New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up! .