Counselor Who Drowned Had Used Marijuana, Blood Reveals : Tragedy: He took the substance within five hours of the Convict Lake incident, toxicologist says. Four would-be rescuers and three boys died.

A Camp O’Neal counselor who drowned in the Convict Lake tragedy that claimed seven lives in February had used marijuana within five hours of his death, forensic toxicologists with the state Department of Justice said Tuesday.

Counselor Randall Porter, 41, had been helping to supervise three youngsters who drowned in the incident after apparently being allowed to stray out onto the lake’s thin ice, according to a Mono County Sheriff’s Department report. Porter and three other would-be rescuers died trying to save the teen-age boys.

An examination of a blood sample conducted at the request of the Sheriff’s Department indicated that Porter had used marijuana within five hours of his death, according to Dean Warden, forensic toxicologist with the state department of justice.

The results of the test may be more important to civil lawyers than to county prosecutors who have decided against charging anyone with criminal negligence in connection with the incident.

“Mr. Porter is deceased,” said Terry Padilla of the Sheriff’s Department. “Criminally there is not anything there for us, but I’m sure this is going to be important to the civil end of it.”

So far, no civil suits have been filed against Camp O’Neal in connection with the Convict Lake incident, according to Mono County Superior Court officials, but sheriff’s officers say private attorneys have expressed interest in Porter’s toxicological test results.

The test results do not indicate whether Porter’s judgment was in any way impaired by the drug, according to Warden.

Results of toxicological tests on the other victims were negative, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

There has been a great deal of speculation since the incident over why some of the 15 youngsters on the President’s Day outing were apparently allowed to walk out and play on the thin ice of the lake.

A Sheriff’s Department report on the incident lauds the courage of Porter and the other would-be rescuers but also raises questions about proper supervision.

“The juveniles apparently were not sufficiently supervised to prevent them from venturing onto the thin ice 200-250 yards offshore,” the report said.

The state Department of Social Services suspended Camp O’Neal’s operating license in March, alleging that the facility had repeatedly failed to provide proper care for and supervision of the 34 teen-age boys who had been sent to the camp by probation and social service officials in other counties.

“If in fact Mr. Porter was under the influence of a controlled substance at the time of the incident,” said state social services spokeswoman Kathleen Norris, “it is yet another example of why the department has deemed it necessary to take an action to revoke the license of Camp O’Neal based on lack of care and supervision.”

Neither Bobbi Trott, administrator of the nonprofit camp, nor her husband, Tim Christensen, administrator of a for-profit school on the camp grounds, was available for comment on Porter’s test results.

The couple previously have denied most of the state’s accusations of lack of care and supervision and have vowed to fight the revocation action at a hearing scheduled for Aug. 27.

Porter was working his first day on the job when he accompanied fellow camp counselor David Meyers and the group of youngsters on the fatal outing.

Meyers, 53, died with Porter trying to save the three struggling youngsters. They were joined in their efforts by volunteer fire captain Vidar Douglas Anderson, 58, and U.S. Forest Service worker Clayton Marshall Cutter, 31, both of whom also drowned. The boys who died were Shawn Raynee Diaz, 15, of Dinuba; Ryan Charles McCandless, 13, of Redlands, and David Christopher Sellers, 15, of Tulare County.

BACKGROUND

Four adults and three youngsters drowned last Feb. 19 after falling through the ice into the frigid waters of Convict Lake during an outing. The three boys were residents of Camp O’Neal, a private facility in the eastern Sierra Nevada for delinquent and troubled youngsters. It has been shut down as a result of the tragedy.