Family seeks answers amid
grief in death of girl
July 27, 2006
 Elisa
Santry was, by all accounts, a gentle, caring, and intelligent girl.
A South Boston resident, she held a 3.7 average at the John D.
O'Bryant High School in Roxbury, one of the top exams schools in the
City of Boston, and had been just as promising in her previous
studies at the Harbor School in Dorchester, where she excelled in
academics and began to show her adventurous spirit with her
participation in the drama club, among other affiliations.
It was this sense
of adventure which led her to write an essay for Summer Search, a
program that offers scholarships to students that focuses on
experiential learning, and it was that intelligence with which she
wrote the essay that won her a trip from that organization to
participate in a 22-day wilderness expedition in Utah with the
Outward Bound program. While it is clear that something went
terribly wrong in the days leading up to the end of the expedition,
what remains critically absent is a firm explanation about the
events that culminated in tragedy for one South Boston family and
community of friends.
The facts, as
presented by several reports, reveal that on July 16th, the 16th day
of the expedition, six youths - led by two instructors - hiked into
Utah's
Lockhart
Canyon
in 110-degree desert heat. At some point in the hike, one of the
youths injured an ankle and required an airlift from the area to
receive medical assistance.
Reportedly, one of
the instructors stayed behind with the injured student while the
others continued on with the hike. It is at this point that details
become less clear and the facts fewer and far between.
According to
reports, instructors realized that they had lost contact with
16-year-old Elisa Santry during the expedition and began searching
for her with the others at 6pm. Authorities say that they didn't
receive notification of the incident until 11pm when her team found
Elisa lying dead approximately one quarter mile away from the trail.
A preliminary
investigation revealed that Elisa still had water in her reserve
bottle and was still carrying the whistle that each hiker is given
before they head out on a trip. Some have speculated that Elisa may
have become disoriented in the excessive heat and glare from the
sun, and still others have been critical of the organization's
decision to bring teenagers into such a dangerous situation, much
less let them hike alone in it. Under Utah Department of Human
Services guidelines, groups involving court involved teens are
forbidden from conducting hikes in temperatures above 90 degrees. No
such guidelines exist for voluntary programs like Outward Bound.
A complete autopsy
is expected to take anywhere from four to eight weeks, and it is
hoped that a definitive cause of death will be revealed to help
inform Elisa's family and friends. But for now, the only thing
certain to Elisa's distraught mother is the pain caused by the death
of her daughter and the anger that has mounted in her search for
answers.
"Flat and simple,
they killed my daughter," said Elisa Woods, mother of Elisa Santry.
"She didn't go
there because she was a bad kid," continued Woods, referring to the
Outward Bound program. "She had a 3.7 average and she goes to one of
the exam schools in
Boston.
She had everything going for her. I never would have let her go if I
knew that she was going to be unsupervised. Everyone knows how
overprotective of her I was, but she was my only daughter."
Describing the
qualities that defined her daughter's young life, Woods hoped to
share with the world what she was able to witness on a daily basis.
"She was
wonderful," Woods said, her voice choked with tears, "she was just
wonderful. She was outgoing, competitive, she was a very good
student. She played soccer since she was three years old. She was a
cheerleader for a couple of years. She won awards for her grades.
She mostly read. She stayed in - she was a good girl. She very
rarely went out and I know for a fact that she didn't smoke or drink
because she stayed in a lot. Oh, and she loved American Idol." She
was also, said Woods, a kind person who was sensitive to others'
needs as evidenced by the time she spent helping to take care of
Woods' husband as he struggled with the throes of Alzheimer's
Disease.
As the family
struggles to deal with the emotional toll of their loss, friends,
community members, and others touched by the family's grief have
offered their sympathy and services in an effort to provide comfort
in this time of tragedy.
"Elisa graduated
the year that I first came on board as a 6th grade associate teacher
at the Harbor School," remembered Chris Tsang. "I and the lead
teacher at the time, Karen Engels, taught Elisa during our elective
course time, a drama elective. I admired the risks that Elisa took
in this elective, her willingness to speak up and speak in front of
her peers as an actress when I could tell it was a challenge or a
stretch for her. My interactions with Elisa gave me the impression,
even in those 7 short weeks where I saw her on our Wednesdays, that
she may have been quiet, but she was friendly and compassionate to
her peers, modeling for her peers the character values of our
school. It does not surprise me that she continued to take more
risks as she grew older at the O'Bryant and in Outward Bound."
"We've been in
frequent touch to offer support with the family at this extremely
sad time in their lives," said Doug Bailey, spokesperson for Summer
Search. "We don't have all the information about what happened in
Utah,
but it's really just a terrible tragedy. We need more answers. The
track record of Outward Bound has been very good up to now." The
Outward Bound organization did not respond to requests for an
interview.
"We stand ready to
assist the family, but it's just a terrible tragedy," said Bailey.
"We need answers just like everybody else." But none more than
Elisa's family.
"She was born
early," said Woods. "She was a preemie. She was my miracle. Now they
took her away from me. I miss her so much right now."
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