Services Held for Girl Scouts

Memorial services for four Girl Scouts and three adults, killed when their bus crashed on the steep, winding slopes of Mt. San Jacinto, were held at two Palm Springs area hospitals Sunday as three more Scouts recovered enough to go home and 19 remained hospitalized.

The private, nondenominational services were intended to “remember girls who are lost, those who are still injured and those who have gone home,” said Jovanna Woodward, executive director of the Spanish Trails Council. “They (survivors) have a need to bring closure to the event. They have a need to talk together.”

The Spanish Trails Council sponsored the “California Dreamin’ ” trip for 100 Scouts from across the nation and some foreign countries that ended in tragedy Wednesday. A school bus carrying 61 of the Scouts and their chaperones veered off the steep descent from the Palm Springs Tramway and rolled into a boulder-strewn gully. Four Scouts, two chaperones and the bus driver died.

One passenger remained in critical condition Sunday at Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, seven were reported as serious and four were listed as fair, a spokesperson said. A private memorial service there attracted more than 50 Scouts, parents, Scouting officials and hospital and rescue workers, said Woodward.

Two Scouts remained in serious condition and three were listed as fair at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, said a nursing supervisor. About 40 Scouts, parents and other officials attended that hospital’s memorial service.

Two victims remained at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Indio, where a nursing supervisor declined to release their condition.