Does anyone remember the Boy Scout truck roll over in Southern Utah in 1963? It happened South of Escalante on the road to Hole-In-The-Rock in 1963. It killed 13 one of who was a girl news reporter for the Deseret News that I knew and went to school with in Gunnison, Utah; name of Dorothy Hansen. It's an interesting and sad story.

http://byhigh.com/History/HoleintheRock/Hole-in-the-Rock.html

when we took our NYC scouts on trek to Del Webb in 2002. Camp staff still pointed out the site where they went over.

I thought it was more recent. But yeah, vehicle rolls off the cliff and lots killed.

Del Webb abuts the north of Zion NP, and pretty much at the Kolob Reservoir.

Can't be two incidents that similar.

two incidents can be that similar.

prosecuted Both the DRIVER & owner of that truck....
this should NEVER have happened, How Sad that it did..

People were so naive & careless then; they prolly didn't do anything legal-wise....

I 'couldn't stand' to read the whole article... Can Anyone tell me any consequences to those responsible?

Mos Are SO QUICK to let serious situations go..
Forgiveness is important, BUT SO IS BEING RESPONSIBLE-ACCOUNTABLE!

I don't know of any legal action. It was common in those days to load the boys into a open bed farm truck and go to scout camp, that's the way I went. My memory of what happened is that the truck was driven by a young person (the owners son). Those trucks had a vaccum assisted braking system. Going up the steep hill the driver missed a gear and the engine died therefore losing the vacuum and the brakes. Then the truck rolled backward and off the side of the steep side of the road rolling over onto the riders.

The driver & owner of the truck died in the accident. I know because his son is a friend.

Others notice and are concerned about the high number of deaths among LDS Scouts. Here's what one LDS Scout leader in Washington State writes in to The Scouter magazine: "Over the past few decades I've noticed that a large percentage of the deaths that occur on Scout outings are associated with LDS units. There have been 2 deaths in the past 2 days: 1 LDS Scout fell from a zip-line, 1 LDS Scout fell into the Yellowstone River. I know that LDS youth make up about 12% of all Scouts but it appears that we make up more like 70% of the accidents."

Here's one of the answers to his comment:
1. Luke Sanburg, 13, LDS. From Montana. Fell into Yellowstone River in June 2005 during troop outing while attempting to "push logs" into the river with the rest of the boys. Search is on-going at this time.

2. Jeffrey Kenneth Lloyd, 17, LDS. From Idaho. Killed on Scout outing after falling from zip-line in June 2005. Lloyd does not appear to have been wearing a safety harness or helmet. Still researching this.

3. Brennan Hawkins, 11, LDS. Lost in Uinta Mountains while participating with older Varsity scouts in a climbing outing. Hawkins was not supervised and had no buddy. He was found 4 days later after a massive search.

4. Garrett Bardsley, 12, LDS. Lost in Uinta Mountains in mid-August 2004 after walking away from his Troop to get some dry shoes. Body never found. This boy was trained in Wilderness Survival but walked away from the area without a buddy, without any supplies, and wearing only cotton.

5. William Dunn, 13, LDS Troop 195 from West Valley City, UT. Lost during troop hiking trip in Uinta mountains for 2-3 days in early August 2004. This boy survived despite attempting to move cross country to rejoin his unit.

6. Cody Clawson, 13, LDS. Troop 241 from Huntsville, UT. Lost during troop camping trip in Wyoming in June 2002? Eventually found personally by Harrison Ford who joined the search crew with his helicopter.

7. Jared Negrete, 13, LDS Troop 538 from El Monte, CA. Lost in CA San Gorgonio Wilderness in 1991 during a troop hike. This boy fell behind his group and was left by his Scout leader to pick up on the return trip. Body never found.

8. Kristoffer Jones, 14, LDS Scout from Long Beach, CA but participating as a guest of an LDS troop from Provo, UT. Died in Zion National Park, UT in June 2004. Jones was unsupervised at the time and fell about 1,000 feet to his death.

9. David Phillips, 15, LDS Scout from Bountiful, UT. Died in July 1996 from heat exhaustion and dehydration in Grand Canyon after his troop ran out of water while hiking the canyon. The remaining 7 members of his party also had to be evacuated by helicopter. They had walked right past the signs warning them about water precautions.

10. David Fleischer and LeRoy Kim Ellis, Adult Explorer Leaders, LDS from Utah. Drowned in July 1993 after descending into a slot canyon in Kolob Canyon, UT on a post outing. The group should have canceled the trip after finding water levels much higher than normal but did not. Survivors sued the National Park Service and others for $24.5 million claiming that "they should have been warned."

11. Jesse Rampenthal, 12, LDS Scout from Gridley, CA. Rampenthal died in 1998 after falling from a steep outcropping in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. This boy had a cast on 1 of his hands at the time yet was unsupervised and unsecured during the climb. His mother sued the LDS Church for failure to provide adequate supervision and settled for an amount described as "substantial, but less than 1 million dollars."

All those were written before LDS Scout Corey Buxton fell to his death in July 2010.

There is the humorous but shocking story someone posted here of a loser of a scout leader taking a huge group all by himself, and being totally unprepared with food and stuff. Among the group were to emotionally disturbed kids who he left alone back at the camp when they took the hike. One of the boys damaged cars, picnic benches, and trees with an ax while threatening other campers. I'll have to re-post that one. It's still on my computer somewhere.

My own experience was that the scout leaders were going to teach me how to swim, dammit. We were on a kayak trip on the Colorado River below Davis Dam, where there are a lot of lagoons. They had the boys carry me screaming up a cliff and then one of the leaders threw me bodily over a cliff about 20-30 feet above the water. No one checked, of course, to see how deep it was, whether there were rocks, etc. I came up terrified and sputtering while they laughed. When it was apparent I was drowning, the guy who threw me off came down from the cliff and hauled me out. He threw me on the shore, asked if I was going to be all right, and called me a "pot-licker," whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. The apparent rule is that anyone can learn to swim if ridiculed enough.

Root cause? I blame it squarely on Scout leaders who are assigned as leaders but don't want to be. I always noticed that we Mormon scouts were the least prepared, and at any regional Scout function, all the other troops sponsored by anyone else were well-organized. They had uniforms, proper gear, a store of food, and leaders who were respected by the kids.

Tell your favorite story if you have one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2011 12:18PM by cludgie.

Fortunately we had excellent leadership for our ward's troop when I was a scout. Scoutmaster was an ex-Marine Corps Staff Sergent. 1st Asst. Scoutmaster was an active duty Navy Chief Petty Officer. 2nd Asst. Scoutmaster had been an Army 1st Lieutenant. We were always well prepared for our hikes and camping trips, and did not take short cuts when advancing in rank. A large number of us were also active in Order of the Arrow. So, it is possible to have good troop leadership in LDS troops; it just isn't common.

Something similar but much much less severe happened to me on a scouting camp-out. Other scouts attempting to force me to do some thing stupid.

People like that should be castrated. Shit that is never funny.

He went on a backpacking trip down the Grand Canyon with the Boy Scouts when we lived in Provo. At one point they had stopped and the kids were trying to cross the river at a place that had rapids but they were trying to get across on slippery rocks and had been told to take their shoes off if they were going to be in the water.

He slipped on the slick rocks and got pulled down the river. He finally got wedged in some rocks so he didn't go any farther and they could pull him out. He was just plain beat up badly from knocking against rocks as he was going down river. Mostly it was scrapes, cuts and bruises but he could no longer hike. He was a sight for sore eyes for several weeks.

So they went to the Indian village where the Park service had a helicopter and they flew him to the top of the canyon and took him to an E.R. That's when they called me and said that he just had a small accident (gave me no clue what it was) and told me not to worry and one of the leaders would be driving him home.

Of course, I wasn't happy with my son for doing something so stupid but I was more upset that none of the adults realized how stupid it was or even cared to go out there themselves and see how slick the rocks were. But to make matters worse, a few weeks later I got a bill that was several hundred dollars for the helicopter ride. I took it to the bishop and told him that he knew I was a single mother with no money and he was just going to have to take care of it. He started to argue with me and I told him that the only other option I have is suing the church, which would include the local scout chapter and even local ward and that he would be named personally, but that one way or the other the church was going to pay it. So either it could be a mess and they could pay it along with a bunch of legal fees and publicity that showed what idiots they were, or they could just pay it.

I never heard another thing about it.

Some years ago, ours son's scout troop planned a 50 miler. Dads were asked to volonteer. DH who is not your outdoorsy type, in fact, he is very much the opposite, the 3 piece suiter 18/7, made very sure to volonteer since we would have 2 boys participating and the area was up in the Sierras, very beautiful. The scout leader was a fat, out of shape dentist, more than likely only there out of duty. This scout leader not only had his own son there, but also brought his huge dog. Now, this dog was aged and eventually collapsed on the trail. They tried to doctor the dog...but he was done! The scout leader, owner of the dog, then decided to abandon the dog to die!!!! My poor DH, couldn't believe it, so along with the boys, he devised a stretcher to transport the dog. DH organized the boys to take turn in transporting the dog. The leader had all he could do to transport himself! They did finish their 50 miler and the dog lived!


P.S. What might have this scout leader done had it been a boy?

I had two very lovely scouting experiences with the church that gave me a good indication of just how pathetic the program can often be:

1) On the way to my first scout camp (thirteen boys, one leader - HUGE opportunity for abuse), we stop at the gas station to refill the leader's van. It is about a five our drive from our hometown to the camp. I run inside and, like any normal 12 year old, am all to happy to spend the dollar burning a hole in my pocket to by a bag of licorice. Unfortunately, it takes a minute for the attendant to complete the transaction and by the time I get back to the van, the leader is all pissed that I held everyone up just to buy candy. We rotated seats and it was my turn to ride shotgun, so he uses this opportunity to teach me a lesson about saving money/junkfood/being a douche. He tells me he thinks I should have just saved my money because he has noticed I am starting to get a little heavy. He tells me he is genuinely concerned for me and suggests that I start going jogging with him and his son when we get back from camp. I take it personally and start crying. We don't really speak the rest of the trip and my first (and only) overnight camp is a shitty experience that goes down hill from there. The highlight ends up being when I sleep in the tent of two boys that the troop is trying to love into activation. We end up looking at their Playboy stash all night long. Lovely.

2) In another ward, a couple years later, the scoutmaster gets us all excited to start doing "paper drives" so we can make money for a trip to California the next summer. He tells us we will all get to go to the nude beach he likes to take his wife and family to when he visits there each year. He also tells us how great it is to go collect paper from the apartment complex next to the church because all the disabled vets regularly discard their no longer needed softcore porn mags. (What he didn't tell us though, was that the pages would all be stuck together. LOL)

True stories. I kid you not.

When BSA scout troops register for hikes/camping into the Grand Canyon (absolutely required, and permits are checked frequently along the trails when backpacks are involved), the NPS goes on high alert. Extra volunteers are called in (I was one of them) because of:

The high morbidity/mortality of scouts and their leaders througout history of the canyon

They frequently stray from trails, are unprepared and are inadequately prepared for the heat (100-120 degrees F at the canyon base is normal in summer) and don't carry enough water.

They do not realize that the Colorado River is extremely cold year-round as it is released from the dam from the base of the water, snow-melt fed, large amounts of water are released occasionally and few people survive being in the water, even briefly (currents, rocks, etc...)

The already strained rangers have double the work when scouts are on the trails. It is risky for the helicopters to rescue people due to updrafts and the walls of the canyon. It takes expert pilots to negotiate the area, added that a flight nurse is needed. Flights into the canyon can cost upwards of $2K per person rescued.

Is there an "I Survived Adult Stupidity" badge available?

I'd guess it was probably 1990, a Layton ward scout troop. The kids hiked right up the mountains above Layton (very steep) ... one boy's adoptive father went up with his son. On the climb down he we sitting with his son on a boulder and a boy from above knocked a huge boulder loose and it rolled down and crushed the boy sitting right next to his father. It was terrible. The boy was literally crushed. The father was very distraught as they had tried to have children for so long but couldn't and this was their adopted boy.

As an experienced hiker/climber I don't think I would have ever led a group of adolescent boys up that slope.

I was a scout on the hike when the kid from Gridley fell to his death. It was not the leaders falt. He when off on his own with out anyone knowing and tried to clime down a cliff.

My abusive tbm ex was a scoutmaster for years. Every time a child would get hurt, he and then others, turned it into some kind of "faith promoting" story (what a miracle it was that the person got rescued, lived through it, etc.) and would smilingly talk about it in testimony mtg. How sick is that?

These are pretty amazing stories. I had a few good leaders, but most were similar to the ones already mentioned.

There was a period of time in my scouting where we had ZERO overnight camping experiences as a troop. At the time I really didn't realize how unusual that was, but looking back now it was clear that it was just wrong not to plan any. Brother Hack was the Scoutmaster and he did a great job holding meetings, organizing and hosting award ceremonies. He just wasn't the outdoor type that wanted to sleep in a tent. So he planned a camping trip for his backyard. I did not attend, but I sure heard about it.

The fun began when Hack would not allow two tents to be pitched on his mangy lawn. Sister Hack bemoaned the fact that 2 tents would destroy the money spent to re-seed their patchy lawn. One tent ended up in the corner, next to the dog house. The other one was pitched near a wood pile and an abandoned clothes line. Hack reminded the scouts that the inside of his house was off-limits during the campout. There was no bathroom so he prepared a pair of buckets inside the garage. One of my friends bragged that he had tinkled on the workbench instead of the bucket.

Hack ordered the scouts into bed around 9pm. He then retired for the night and scouts were left alone until morning. They played war games through out the night. Several boys had casualties from being hit by flying pine cones. Sometime in the early morning, a large thunderstorm developed in the foothills. The wind knocked over wood and it injured one boy's hand. The family dog came inside of the other tent. Both tents leaked and the boys tried to get inside the house in order to escape the downpour. Hack arrived at the sliding glass door and refused to open it. He made them stay in the garage until morning.

In the morning, all the scouts got picked up. All went home except for the boy with the injured hand. He went to the local ER to get stitches to close the wound.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2017 03:51AM by messygoop.

He should have been relieved of his 'inspired calling' at the least, banned from scouting forever, and arrested. What a piece of shit.

I agree.

However, this was considered normal leadership 30-35 years ago. At opening exercises of PH, it was common to hear about the latest adventures of being lost, facing calamities and general episodes of misery = lack of leadership, preparation and proper adult supervision. If Bobby came back with a broken leg from falling on a hike then it would be spun into a faith promoting story. While laughing the poor scout would get called out and ribbed about breaking his leg.

"Looks like you're getting along fine with the crutches. Har-har-har! How long? Oh. only 9 weeks with a cast? Well time heals all wounds. Har-har-har! Well, we had better get this meeting moving along so we can hop-a-long to our quorum meetings. Har-har-har."

We never had a good feeling about letting our son go on the scout trips. He went one time when they camped overnight at Bear Lake. It turned out to be safe,except when they were out on a sail boat on the lake and a sudden storm was approaching. They were very lucky and managed to make it back to shore just in time. The following year, the scout master came to our house and was trying to convince our son to go on another trip. He didn't want to go and we backed him up. The scoutmaster called our son a slacker and lazy and to buck up. I told the jerk that we were not about to put our son in harm's way with incompetent or abusive leadership.