Lightning Kills Sleeping Boy Scout
A bolt of lightning killed a 15-year-old Boy Scout and injured three others as they slept in a log shelter during a violent storm in Utah's Uinta Mountains.
"There was a big flash and a big boom," said Dr. Stephen Morris, a trauma surgeon at the University of Utah's burn unit who was with the troop. "Somebody came running down the trails saying, 'Help, we need help."'
Morris said he tried in vainfor 90 minutes to revive the boy after Tuesday night's lightning strike.
"I just sat on the bed and cried. I couldn't go to sleep. I was just sitting there thinking 'This poor guy,'" Morris told Salt Lake television station KUTV.
The family of Paul Ostler, the scout who was killed, has released a statement thanking leaders and doctors at the scout camp "who tried so valiantly to save Paul's life."
Two of the injured boys were flown to the University of Utah burn unit. One boy, 13-year-old Kurtis Loosli, is in good condition; the family of another boy at the same hospital has asked that no information about him be made public.
A third boy, Matthew Edwards, 13, was released Wednesday after being treated for minor burns to his legs, feet and neck, according to his father, Doug Edwards.
The elder Edwards, who is a troop leader, says the the four boys were sleeping in a corner of the log shelter during the storm.
"From what we can tell, it appears the lightning hit a tree next to us, came down and came out of the tree and just into some nails that were driven into the cabin to hold the logs together," said Edwards, speaking to reporters outside Primary Children's Medical Center.
Officials say the heavy, elevated log structure, open on one side, would have been the safest place in the mountains to seek shelter from the storm. The lightning made what appeared to be a direct hit on the structure, according to sheriff's Deputy Wally Hendricks.
Two other boys and another scout leader in the lean-to were uninjured.
Jeremy Robinson, the father of a scout from another troop who was sleeping in the shelter next door, told The Salt Lake Tribune the uninjured scouts "were in disbelief... They just kept saying, 'I can't believe it. I never thought it would happen to us.' They wanted to know how their friend was doing. They kept asking, 'Is he going to be all right?'"
"We're just devastated by the loss of one of our youth," said Kay Godfrey, a spokesman for the Boy Scouts' Great Salt Lake Council.
Camp Steiner is in the Uinta Mountains, about 60 miles east of Salt Lake City. Perched at an elevation of 10,400 feet, it is the highest Boy Scout camp in the country and as such is a magnet for thunderstorms.
A line of thunderstorms rolled across much of Utah on Tuesday night, causing flash floods in the southwestern part of the state and taking out a bridge and closing a highway.
In Utah, lightning is second only to avalanches as a weather-related killer and has claimed 60 lives in the past 50 years.
The boys in the Camp Steiner incident belong to the same Salt Lake troop, Troop 56, and are between the ages of 12 and 16.
The boy's parents, Brent and Teresa Ostler of Salt Lake City, say Paul was an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in scouting, usually attained at an older age of 17 or 18. But in Utah, the Mormon Church advances its scouts more quickly so they can prepare for a proselytizing mission.
Camp Steiner is in the same rugged region where volunteers plan to renew a search on Thursday for
Tuesday night's tragedy in Utah is the second deadly lightning strike on Boy Scout camps in just over a week.
In California on July 28th, an assistant Scoutmaster and a 13-year-old Scout were killed by a lightning strike in Sequoia National Park.
In Virginia on July 25th at the National Boy Scout Jamboree, scouts witnessed another horrifying incident. Four Scout leaders at the Jamboree were electrocuted when they lost control of a metal pole at the center of a large dining tent, sending it toppling into nearby power lines.