A 14-year-old fell ill at an Outward Bound camp. The Medical Examiner's Office says all signs indicate no trauma was involved.
By MARLON A. WALKER
Published June 27, 2006
Authorities hope an autopsy will determine what killed a 14-year-old Punta Gorda youth who fell ill the day he was to be released from a De Soto County Outward Bound camp.
Officials at the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office say all signs indicate there was no physical trauma involved.
"I can tell you it's looking like a medical-type death," said Bill Pellan, chief investigator for the Medical Examiner's Office. "There are no indications of any injuries."
Dillon Peak died at All Children's Hospital on June 17 - a month to the day after he was to be released from the camp. His mother, Pamela Peak, was driving to pick him up when she received a call saying he had been hospitalized. He later slipped into a coma. Now, she's blaming the Department of Juvenile Justice, saying the teen didn't get proper medical care at the outdoor camp for low-risk offenders ages 14 to 18.
She told the Charlotte Sun that she later learned her son had been hospitalized twice in four days. The first time he was suffering from strep throat and had a 104-degree fever, she said. He was given Tylenol and sent back to the camp, where he was staying with several other boys in a tent.
Pamela Peak said her son's doctors think the teen might have had a rare type of encephalitis on top of the strep throat.
Juvenile Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Lorenzo said an internal review is being conducted to see if the situation could have been handled better. An environmental specialist investigated afterward and found no signs of anything contagious at the camp, she said.
Citing confidentiality laws, Lorenzo declined to discuss details of Dillon's illness or how it was handled at the camp.
Dillon, who moved with his mother to a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer park after Hurricane Charley damaged their home in 2004, was sent to the Outward Bound camp for six months after he and some other boys stole a golf cart from an apartment complex, and he also got caught trespassing, his mother said.
It's the second death in a Florida disciplinary camp to make headlines this year. In January, Martin Lee Anderson died after collapsing at a boot camp operated by the Bay County Sheriff's Office. A security videotape shows guards beating Anderson, but the county medical examiner ruled after an autopsy that the boy died of a blood disorder.
--Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. Marlon A. Walker can be reached at mwalker@sptimes.com or 727 893-8737.
