http://www.heal-online.org/aspenranch.htmASPEN RANCH
IN LOA, UT
SURVIVOR REPORTS
SURVIVOR REPORT #1 BY ANONYMOUS
I wish I knew where to begin. I will try to focus on the most disturbing experiences i can
remember but, like many other survivors of such programs i find myself having a hard time remembering everything that went on.
For the first two weeks you arrive at Aspen Ranch you are placed on a level known as round-up. During this period of time you are either silent in a basement, or outside doing manual labor (changing watering pipes, building fences etc).
You can not have any contact with your parents and get to talk to a therapist maybe once or twice.
One July morning when I refused to go outside, the sheets were ripped out from under me and I was carried and thrown onto a staircase where two men put my shoes on picked me up and dragged me to the field where I was to work. Afraid of any other forms of punishment,
I did. Being physically threatened is a major way they get you to follow the rules.
Every week you got to speak with your parents, on speakerphone, with your therapist present for 20 minutes. If you ever tried to tell your parents about the torture you were suffering through the conversation would be immediately terminated. All letters were read before sent,
all incoming mail opened read and inspected before given to you. The only contact allowed was to your parents and had to be positive.
On top of whatever work project your team was assigned to each day you also had to participate in an hour long physical, no matter how physically drained you were. People would sometimes pass out or break down begging to stop but, for the most part the physical went on for as long as the supervisor saw fit.
The psychological abuse was never ending, if you were suspected of doing something wrong you would be forced to go into the basement and sit at a desk until you admitted what you were accused of. We were often threatened to be sent to an out of country program where we were told there was no child labor laws, I still don't know if this program exists but, the mere threat was enough to keep most of us "in line".
I could go on forever with stories of this sort. My main point though, please do not put your child through
this, two years later I am still suffering from the lies I was fed.
Please protect my identity. I know this is not a complete story but I think it gets the point across. If you need my full name and dates I attended the program for your own records I can let you know, thanks so much for raising awareness about such horrible programs.
SURVIVOR REPORT #2 BY ANON
These are all factual events that take place at aspen ranch everyday, these are events that have taken place and will continue to unless someone takes action soon. Everything in my statement is true and I give HEAL permission to use my
statement.
I am a survivor of the aspen ranch school, located in Loa, UT. A Theraputic Boarding school/ rehabilitation center.....my ass. Aspen Ranch uses a physical restraint system called PCS (positive control system) which is actually FAR from positive. PCS includes a barrage or various pressure points and bent wrists, locked joints, and strained tendons.
Once put into PCS submission you are held here by a minimum of 3 staff, you're pulse regularly checked to indicate your level of anger. You are normally on the ground (also known as "Carpet Time" for a norm of 45 minutes to an hour) They use any method of getting you down, whether it be calmly asking you to cooperate with them or tackling you through a crowd of
people onto concrete (which seems to be a staff favorite). I have seen many of my friends at Aspen Ranch end up with broken wrists from PCS. I have myself lost the feeling in the tips of my fingers for days as a result of being held in PCS submission for over 3 hours.
Once you are PCSed (on top of everything) you have to go to R&R (redirection and recovery)
more commonly known as the room where you where red sweat pants and sweat shirts even in the dead of the summer (in the Desert) to no avail.
The "on campus" psychiatrist's prescribe you medications based on staff behavioral reports, without even consulting you to see how you feel about putting a new foreign substance into your body or checking past medical records (could be detrimental to your well being). For example I myself was a bit ADHD according to staff, and the staff apparently thought that they were doing me a favor recommending that i be prescribed to Ritalin (methylphindate), which
actually led to a number of seizures...to bad they didn't bother to check to see if my family had a history of amphetamine
related seizures. thanks aspen ranch!!
