PUNTA GORDA, Fla. -- State juvenile justice authorities were
conducting an internal investigation after a 14-year-old boy
died after becoming ill at a DeSoto County Outward Bound camp
for teen offenders, an official said Monday.
Dillon Peak of Punta Gorda died
June 17 at a St. Petersburg hospital, a month after he became
incoherent and suffered seizures at the camp.
His mother, Pamela Peak, is blaming
the Department of Juvenile Justice, claiming the teen didn't get
proper medical care at the outdoors camp for low-risk offenders
ages 14 to 18.
She told the Charlotte Sun that
she later learned her son was 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 Outward Bound camp where he was staying with several
other boys in a tent.
Pamela Peak said her son's doctors
have theorized the boy had a rare type of encephalitis on top of
the strep throat.
An autopsy is being conducted by
the Pinellas County medical examiner's office, but results
aren't expected for about six weeks, spokesman Bill Pellan said
Monday.
"I can tell you there's no
indication of any trauma or anything like that," Pellan said.
"It appears to be something medical."
Department of Juvenile Justice
spokeswoman Cynthia Lorenzo said the internal review was to
confirm the situation was handled appropriately. An
environmental specialist investigated afterward and found no
signs of anything contagious at the camp, she said.
"Early indications are that
everything was handled appropriately," said Lorenzo. "All
indications suggest that the tragic death was due to a medical
condition."
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.
She said she was driving to the
camp to pick him up May 17 when she got a call from camp
administrators saying her son was hospitalized. He slipped into
a coma sometime after that.
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2006 by
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