AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Board of Nursing has suspended the license of Mary Liz Eastland, the co-director and registered nurse who served as the medical officer for Camp Mystic, concluding that she failed to assist children and staff as predawn floodwaters overtook the all-girls Christian camp along the Guadalupe River on July 4, 2025, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
The disciplinary order — described by AP as scathing — represents one of the first state-level actions taken against a member of the Eastland family since the flood killed 25 girls and two teenage counselors. Last month, Camp Mystic canceled plans to reopen for the summer of 2026 in the face of sustained protest from victims’ parents.
Eastland has previously acknowledged in court that she never tried to reach children and staff sheltering in the low-lying section of the camp as the river rose during the early-morning hours of the holiday weekend, according to the AP. The board’s order treated that inaction as a dereliction of her professional duty as a licensed nurse designated as the camp’s health officer.
Richard Eastland, the camp’s owner and Mary Liz Eastland’s father-in-law, also died in the flood. The suspension of his daughter-in-law’s license adds a further regulatory consequence to a disaster that has already drawn multiple investigations, lawsuits, and legislative attention across two sessions of the Texas Legislature.