By Nancy Lofholm
The Denver Post
Salt Lake Tribune
May 18, 2007
In a last letter to his family from a wilderness camp for troubled youths, Caleb Jensen wrote about the difficulties of surviving in the wild and added a postscript: "I want my mommy."
Jensen's mother, Dawn Boyd of Salt Lake City, received the letter from her youngest child during the week before he died of an untreated staph infection. He was participating in a court-ordered wilderness therapy program through Alternative Youth Adventures near Montrose, Colo.
The program's license to operate was suspended in the wake of Jensen's death.
Boyd said she believes camp staff ignored her son's assertions that he was sick and needed to go home. She also believes the Utah Division of Juvenile Justice Services, which placed her son in the rough and remote program, failed to take into account her son's frequent problems with staph infections
Boyd said her son's letters from camp recently said he was feeling better about his life but badly wanted to come home.
Jensen described a different life in camp. He wrote he had to climb mountains every day until he was exhausted. He was able to wash only twice a week using tiny amounts of water. He had to clean his dishes after meals by licking them and then using dirt to scour them.
"That's not how he should have been treated, like a dog or a lizard," said his grandmother, Ella Reese of Troy, Idaho.
Jensen expressed some optimism along with the complaints. "Mom, I think I'm going to make it this time," he wrote in a letter.
Jensen, 15, died May 2 of a methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus infection. The bacterial infection traditionally is seen in hospitalized or very ill or elderly patients.
Jensen's mother said he had been treated for numerous staph infections since he was a toddler and suffered a related skin problem called impetigo. He was treated for three infections while he was in other juvenile justice programs in Utah before being sent to the camp, she said.
Carol Sisco, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Human Services that oversees the juvenile justice programs, said Jensen passed a physical before he was sent to the camp March 28. She said he had a physical in the field the week before he died and a session with a therapist the day before his death. No one reported that he was ill. His mother said he did not report being ill in his last letter.
Jensen's family has been unable to get much information about Caleb's death. Reese said they pieced together information that shows Jensen was sitting on his sleeping bag in the camp during a rest day on the day he died. Jensen, who had been exhibiting behavioral problems for several days before his death, told a counselor he didn't feel well and needed to go home. After the counselor moved on, Jensen slumped over. Less than 10 minutes later when a counselor checked on him, he was dead, Reese said.
Bill Palatucci, a spokesman for Community Education Centers, Inc., the Roseland, the company that created the youth camp, said complaints from troubled youths are common.
"They hear a lot that youths want to go home. The staff is taught to sort through those and determine the genuine issues and the non," Palatucci said.
Palatucci would not reveal the amount of medical training the four camp counselors have. He said their training meets state licensing requirements.
Community Education Center is contesting the Colorado Department of Human Services suspension of its license to operate the camp. A hearing is expected to be scheduled within the next month. The other 26 participants in the camp have been moved to youth detention facilities in Utah and Colorado.
Boyd said she is working with an attorney to try to find out more about the death of her son, who had been in and out of state custody "for anger issues" since she and her children moved to Salt Lake City in 2004.
