Town in Grief Over Tragic Twist

The word spread door-to-door through the isolated calm of the desert night--Jeff Thornton had unexpectedly died.

When 15-year-old Derek Deese heard the news just before dawn Saturday, he couldn’t believe the friend with whom he spent his afternoons skateboarding was gone.

“You never think something like this is going to happen to your best friend,” Deese said Sunday. He said he broke into tears at the news.

The drama of Thornton’s disappearance and rescue in the San Gabriel Mountains captured the nation. But residents in his hometown on the sun-scorched flats of the Imperial Valley were left reeling and silent this weekend when they learned the 14-year-old snowboarder had died due to complications resulting from exposure.

“I don’t even live here, but even a visitor can tell how much people cared about him, how much this whole ordeal hit this town,” said Jennifer Perez, 33, who was visiting her sister from Ventura. Quiet evidence of the despair could be found throughout the farming town of 20,000 residents.

Above Ethel’s Diner on Main Street, a chalkboard sign read: “In Hope of Jeff Thornton, Please Pray.” Flags at the civic center were flown at half-staff. And in front of the women’s clothing store owned by Jeff’s mother Lori, eight fresh bouquets of flowers rested on the pavement.

One note attached to the flowers read: “Lori and family, we pray for your strength. Our hearts break for you.”

At the First Presbyterian Church, where Thornton was a member, parishioners Sunday tried to remove some of the burden from the Thornton family by volunteering to provide food for the next few days.

The Rev. Scott Peterson urged the congregants to “keep Jeff, Jeff’s mother and family in your prayers.”

Thornton’s classmates at Brawley Union High School, where Jeff was a weightlifter and center on the freshman football team, remembered him as a quiet, friendly and popular boy. When he was still lost in the frozen wilderness, they had held daily prayers under the flagpole on campus.

Sunday, their spirits stood in stark contrast to the elation over his rescue nine days before.

“When he was found, that’s all anyone would talk about,” said Donnie Lewis, 15. “Now that he’s dead, no one is talking about much of anything.”

Thornton was rescued on Feb. 13 two miles below the New Mountain High ski resort, six days after he strayed off the slopes into an isolated ravine.

“The day they found him it was right before school got out,” Lewis said. “When the bell rang and we went outside, everyone was going crazy, hugging and crying and saying ‘Jeff’s found!’ ”

Hopes in Brawley were high all week as hospital officials at Loma Linda University Medical Center, where Thornton was transferred the day after his rescue, reported the boy in stable and fair condition.

Then, late Friday night, officials reported that Thornton had developed respiratory problems and swiftly died of cardiac arrest. Saturday night, the San Bernardino County coroner’s office reported that the cause of death was a medical procedure used in a last-ditch effort to save a patient. The oxygenation procedure involved inserting two tubes through Thornton’s blood vessels into his heart. According to the coroner, one of the tubes broke through the heart wall.

Loma Linda officials disputed that the procedure was the cause of death.

Sunday evening, the coroner’s office issued a second news release, elaborating on its findings from the day before. The release explained that the procedure was risky but necessary and a “desperate attempt to sustain life.”

“Jeffrey’s condition was extremely grave at the time and there was a very high possibility that he would not have survived in any case,” said the statement.

Thornton’s friend Deese has avoided discussing what has happened or taking part in memorials to his friend.

“I don’t want to see anyone cry,” he said.

But Lewis managed to find one positive in the tragic circumstances surrounding Thornton’s death.

“I think he was brought back” from the mountains, Lewis said, “so he got to see his mom and so he wouldn’t end up dying out there alone.”