From Laughter To Tragedy

Carol LaCroix says her husband, Mike, was having a grand old time at the National Boy Scout Jamboree when she chatted with him by phone Sunday. She says the call was filled with laughter.

But it was to be the last time they spoke.

LaCroix, of Anchorage, Alaska, was among four adult Boy Scout leaders electrocuted at the jamboree in Fort A.P. Hill, near Bowling Green, Va., Monday. Three others were injured.

The accident is believed to have occurred when the men were setting up a dining tent and a metal pole struck a wire.

Carol LaCroix

The LaCroixs have three sons, and Carol says Mike believed it was important for them to go through the scouting experience: "We had just been married a short time, and he had been asked to help in our scouting program at church. And he saw the changes that it made in boys' lives, and how it helped them to set goals, and to attain them and to be able to reach a little further than possibly they would have.

"He saw how they grew up when they would come into these programs at very young ages. He'd see them … go from being young boys to young men, and seeing how they would become future assets to our community and to their schools and to their church and their families. And how it helped them to mature and to experience a lot of things that many of the boys wouldn't have experienced outside of the scouting program."

Paula Call's husband, Jay Lawrence Call, also of Anchorage, suffered burns to his hips, hands and feet, but was released from the hospital Tuesday.

Call told Smith her husband was conscious after the accident, was "able to see the other leaders, and knew that they weren't in very good shape at the time. And he did see a few that were still breathing.

"But he said he suffered horrific pain. He was paralyzed and he wasn't able to speak."

Paula says Jay has returned to the jamboree.