Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare is a shocking expose of a wilderness therapy camp set up by Steve Cartisano in the late 1980s. The camp was designed to rebuild “troubled teens” into better people and used a series of physical and mental ordeals on the unwilling participants. Initially, with the US feeling that the teenagers of the day were descending into decadency, the camp was a hit, but tragedy and controversy were not far away, and a sixteen-year-old girl named Kristen Chase tragically and unnecessarily lost her life.
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What happened to Kristen Chase at the Challenger Foundation Camp in Utah?
Kristen Chase was a sixteen-year-old girl who had been sent to take part in the camp by her mother. The fee for attending was just under sixteen thousand dollars, but with parents looking to find a way to deal with their teenagers, Kristen’s mother Sharon Fuqua paid the fee for her daughter to attend.
Tragically, young Kristen would collapse and die while on a hike. An article from Deseret News would reveal that her father, Ronald M. Chase, would file a suit in the U.S. District Court against Stephen A. Cartisano and the Challenger Foundation. The state charged Cartisano with negligent homicide. Ronald Chase would say that he did not even know that his daughter had been enrolled in the program.
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Shortly after arriving at the facility, Kristen would be involved in hikes that were between five and six miles long, in temperatures of nearly a hundred degrees. Despite previously showing signs of heat exhaustion, Kristen would be taken on another hike on June 27th. The young girl would collapse and die on the hike, and a delay in the proper medical attention being provided was a major part of the suit against Cartisano and the company.
Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare
Was Steven Cartisano charged for Kristen Chase’s Death?
An article in High Country News explains that Cartisano and Challenger were charged with negligent homicide and nine misdemeanor counts of child abuse.
In the wake of the terrible events, the company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy being more than $1 million in debt. Cartisano was acquitted of all criminal charges in Chase’s death in 1992 but the damage was done as far as the business was concerned and the wave of publicity resulted in a range of civil suits against his company. Seven federal suits alleging negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, and breach of contract were filed between August 1989 and November 1993 and all were settled out of court.
What happened after Kristen’s death?
Cartisano was banned from running any child wilderness treatment program in Utah and later in Hawaii, where another version of Challenger also appeared. This camp, as with the others that he set up, had similar problems. Determined to continue his work, Cartisano would continue to operate unlicensed programs, leaving behind a trail of controversy and trauma.
The film also covers the shocking treatment that participants in his camp in Samoa experienced, which led to the US Embassy becoming involved and essentially closing his operation down.
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