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Lightning Kills Scout, Troop Leader in Sequoia

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Times Staff Writers

Lightning killed a Boy Scout leader and a teenage Scout as their troop scrambled for shelter during a storm in Sequoia National Park, authorities said Friday.

The lightning strike, which occurred late Thursday afternoon in the park’s rugged backcountry, mortally injured 13-year-old Ryan Collins, who was kept on a ventilator for a time so that his organs could be donated, in compliance with a wish he had expressed to his parents.

Ryan died Friday night at University Medical Center in Fresno, a hospital spokeswoman said.

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A second adult troop leader and five other teenage Scouts suffered injuries, officials said.

Ryan was kept alive by fellow Scouts, who administered CPR to him and others for an hour until helicopters arrived, according to relatives and a National Park Service spokesperson.

The incident left residents in the troop’s Napa Valley hometown of St. Helena reeling, and it coincided with a time of grieving for many Scouts nationally. On Monday, four adult Scout leaders from Alaska were electrocuted while setting up a tent at the National Scout Jamboree in Virginia.

“They’re freak accidents,” said Laura Bourret, 38, as she and her daughter laid flowers in front of the Napa Valley troop’s clapboard headquarters Friday.

“They’re both very traumatic and heartbreaking experiences.... I hope this doesn’t discourage youths from participating in Boy Scouts.”

The St. Helena Scouts were hiking along the John Muir Trail, at more than 10,000 feet, when they were caught in a sudden lightning storm, a common summer occurrence in the area, said Alexandra Picavet, a park spokeswoman.

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The group of seven teens and five adults was more than halfway through a planned a nine-day hike across the Sierra Nevada range and were about four miles west of Mt. Whitney, their destination.

Lightning had been flashing for most of the day Thursday, but the weather grew intense about 4 p.m., as the group entered a meadow, Picavet said.

The Scouts separated into two groups and began erecting tarp shelters about 50 feet apart to wait out the storm. Not long after the campers huddled beneath their shelters, a bolt struck a tarp, instantly killing assistant Scout leader Steve McCullagh, 29.

Others were also injured, but none more critically than Ryan Collins.

As the Scouts and their leaders attended to the injured and gave several CPR, two boys grabbed maps and ran to the closest ranger station. They returned with a park ranger, who immediately radioed for rescue helicopters.

Four helicopters with paramedics responded and evacuated the campers in the midst of the storm.

At University Medical Center, distraught relatives issued a statement praising the efforts of his fellow Scouts and the rescue workers who struggled to keep him alive.

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“The heroic efforts undertaken by Ryan’s fellow Scouts, Scout leaders, Forest Service medical staff and other backpackers, who worked selflessly for hours in the midst of an ongoing lightning storm, was simply extraordinary,” the statement said.

David Heneghan, spokesman for the California Transplant Donor Network, said Ryan’s organs would most likely be transplanted in the next few days. Heneghan, who works as a liaison for donor families and recipients, said the young Scout was unique because he had already spoken with his family about wanting to be an organ donor.

“Because they had discussed this as a family, there was no confusion about what they should do,” Heneghan said.

The family appeared to take some consolation that Ryan was doing what he enjoyed most when tragedy struck.

“Our son Ryan and his assistant Scout leader Steve McCullagh were lost while on a trip of a lifetime in God’s country,” the statement said. “Ryan was doing what he loved most with the people he loved most -- a group of people we consider our extended family. We hold them in the highest regard.”

Ryan was well known in the community for good deeds at his St. Helena school, where he recently dressed up as Clifford the Dog to promote reading among elementary school students.

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The Terra Valentine winery in Napa Valley, where assistant leader McCullagh had worked as a company controller for three years, closed in his memory.

“He told us he was going” on the trip, said co-worker Beth Pryor, 33. “He loved going backpacking and being a Scout leader.”

“He developed a passion for mentoring children, and never stopped giving to his community,” said Sam Baxter, his boss and his best friend since fourth grade. “He was good at everything he did because he put his whole heart into everything he did.”

“He was the best you could possibly ask for,” said friend Paul Vorland, 57. “He was always up.”

Also injured in the lightning strike was Scoutmaster Stuart Smith, who was among a group taken to Kaweah Delta Hospital in Visalia.

“I’m just not talking about it yet,” Smith told the Associated Press from his hospital room. “It’s too raw and too emotional at the moment.”

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Seven people have died in the Sequoia park this year, most in accidents related to the heavy snowpack, which is filling rivers and making their currents dangerous.

Summer storms with lightning are not unusual in the high country this time of year, Picavet said, though deaths by lightning are very rare.

“They were up at 10,500 feet. Lightning is not unusual in the storms that pass through the High Sierra in the summertime,” Picavet told radio station KCBS-AM in San Francisco.

“The only thing that they could have done differently was simply disperse a little bit more, but actually they did as well as they could do in the situation that they were in.”

By Friday evening, all but one of the injured had been released from the hospital and had headed back home to St. Helena, a community of about 5,100.

Throughout the day, residents stopped by the Scouts’ headquarters with flowers or discussed the incident at local coffee shops and restaurants.

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“It’s certainly a very sad chapter for the Scout troop in this community,” said Robert Haley, assistant superintendent of the St. Helena Unified School District. “This community is very close-knit, very supportive of everybody that lives and works here.”

Many residents knew the Scouts or the group leaders or were aware of their expedition through local service and community groups that helped back the trip.

“We were just talking about how weird it was about what happened at the jamboree, and the same thing happens here,” said resident Sheri Warnick, a retired dental hygienist.

“To have those two things happen back to back is pretty eerie.”

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Chawkins reported from Fresno, Morin reported from Los Angeles, Times staff writer Claudia Zequeira reported from Visalia and correspondent Donna Horowitz reported from St. Helena.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

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