Former campers raise concern about NC wilderness camp where 12-year-old died
Former campers who attended Trails Carolina, the North Carolina wilderness camp where a 12-year-old boy died in early February, are speaking out.
On Feb. 3, the day after the boy arrived at camp, someone called 911 around 8 a.m. to report the boy was not breathing.
Firefighters responded and performed CPR on the boy but stopped, because the boy had been dead for "some time," according to the sheriff's office. The boy was not named due to his age.
Some kids who also attended the western N.C. camp say they experienced torturing conditions that could've also led to their death.
"I immediately went through a list in my head of like the ways that I was treated that could have caused his death," said former camper Vic Mitterando, who attended Trails Carolina for three months in 2017 and 2018.
A search warrant filed by criminal investigators described how the boy had to sleep that night in a Bivvy bag, or an emergency sleeping bag, strung up on a thick piece of plastic with an alarm that would go off if he moved.
It's a slightly different version of a contraption Mitterando and other former campers have described having to sleep in called a burrito.
"The restrictive component of it was the same," Mitterando said. "I remember I was on burrito for two weeks and I remember not being able to sleep because I could not move. I could not breathe very well. It was just kind of like a cocoon."
Mitterando said he thought, "What did I do to deserve this? How is this therapeutic in any ways?"
Another former camper, a 14-year-old girl whose parents asked reporters to not disclose her name, described, "We would lay on a tarp and then they'd wrap it over us, restraining us from any movement. You had to stay like this long time."
The girl attended Trails Carolina in 2022.
"I just didn't understand, why would any parents send their kid here," she asked. "When I heard about the death at Trails, it hurt me a lot more than I thought it would because my first reaction was I made it out but he didn't."
The Transylvania County Sheriff's Office said the medical examiner has ruled the 12-year-old boy's death as unnatural, but no cause of death has been announced.
"These are kids," Mitterando said. "These are kids who are depressed and anxious and suicidal. And they don't want to be there."
If he could speak to a camp leader, Mitterando would say, "Shame on you, what you're doing is hurting people. And in some sick way, you might think that you're helping them because of the amount of money that you're getting but you're just hurting children."
Earlier this month, the state Department of Health and Human Services removed remaining children from the camp and stopped all camp admissions after the boy's death.
The shuttered camp at 500 Winding Gap Road is described as a "wilderness therapy program" for kids and teenagers ages 10 to 17 "who struggle with mental health challenges," according to its website.
