Summary paragraph

The Texas Board of Nursing suspended the nursing license of Camp Mystic co-director Mary Liz Eastland, a registered nurse who served as the camp’s medical officer, accusing her of failing to help during last year’s deadly Guadalupe River flood. In an order signed Tuesday by executive director Kristin Benton, the board said Eastland’s continued practice would present a risk to public welfare. Eastland and her representatives rejected the findings and said the state acted without testimony or a full investigation.

Eastland served as the camp’s medical officer at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian camp, where the July 4 flood killed 25 girls and two teenage counselors. The order said the board’s action is among the state’s first against a family member who owns and operates the camp.

The nursing board’s decision rests on its account of what it described as Eastland’s inaction as flooding worsened in the camp’s low-lying area. The board said Eastland abandoned campers and staff by evacuating herself and her children to higher ground without providing assistance or direction to the other campers and staff, according to the order.

Benton’s order also framed the suspension as an urgent public-safety measure. The board said allowing Eastland to keep practicing nursing would constitute a “continuing and imminent threat to public welfare,” language used in the order.

Eastland’s attorney, Joshua Fiveson, said Eastland rejects the board’s findings and will fight the suspension. Fiveson said the board suspended her license with less than a day’s notice for a hearing and did not take testimony or conduct what he described as a full investigation.

The board said it will issue a final decision on Eastland’s license within two months, after the interim suspension. Fiveson called the suspension “premature punishment,” and he said it was a “sad day” for Eastland and “every licensed nurse in Texas,” according to his remarks reported alongside the order.

The dispute comes as the Eastland family faced intensifying scrutiny from families of the victims and Texas lawmakers since the flood. Several families have filed lawsuits against the Eastlands, after the camp initially pursued plans to reopen and then backed down in response to criticism.

In legislative hearings, Eastland acknowledged she did not try to reach children and staff in the low-lying area as the flood conditions worsened. The reporting says Eastland previously acknowledged in court that she never tried to reach children and staff in that part of the camp as the predawn flooding along the Guadalupe River intensified.

The record described in the hearings included Eastland’s account of what she did that night when she and her children left her house to join her mother-in-law as water rose. Eastland recounted water pouring into the house and breaking a window to escape, and that the family was able to reach higher ground, according to the account described in the AP report.

The reporting also described what Eastland did after reaching survivors, including taking a head count and checking names against cabin rosters. She told lawmakers she could not get to the campers closest to the Guadalupe River because floodwaters had blocked passage, the report said.

Eastland was also questioned about why, as the camp’s chief medical officer, she did not try to call or alert other medical staff to help evacuate campers before the disaster, according to the AP account. When asked if other staff could have helped with evacuation, Eastland responded, “Maybe so,” the report said.

Camp Mystic canceled plans to reopen this summer, with families’ outrage contributing to the decision. MSI previously reported that Camp Mystic in Texas would not reopen this summer after all after all, as scrutiny mounted following the July 4 flood and subsequent legislative questioning of emergency planning.

sources: