Tragic death at Liahona Academy

[Oscar]

Memorial event will help raise awareness about brain aneurysms, BY SUSAN MCFARLAND, The Keller Citizen, January 18, 2011

One year ago, Dana Beard received the phone call every parent fears.
"You need to get here. Something bad has happened," a school counselor told her.
Beard, a Keller resident, was on a business trip in Shreveport, LA, more than 1,300 miles from the Utah school her son was attending.
When Beard arrived, Taylor Mangham, 15, was on life support with no chance of recovery after suffering a brain aneurysm. He died Jan. 19, 2010.
Saturday, Jan. 22, to celebrate his memory, the Taylor Mangham 1st Annual 5K Memorial Run/Walk for Brain Aneurysm Awareness will be held at Bear Creek Park in Keller.
Taylor's story
The week before Thanksgiving 2009, Taylor's mom made arrangements for him to move to Virgin, Utah and attend Liahona Academy, a residential treatment center for troubled teen boys.
Beard said Taylor, a Keller High School student at the time, was struggling with drugs and alcohol.
"He came to me and said, 'I need help. I can't do this on my own,'" Beard said.
Through counselors, Beard heard about the Utah school and both she and Taylor knew it was an option to help him get on a better path.
Early morning Nov. 21, 2009, Beard woke up her son when the transport team arrived. He left without a struggle.
That was the last day she saw her son alive.
"I felt so helpless because I wasn't there when he passed," she said. "That bothered me more than anything. I didn't get to say last words."
Doctors told Beard her even if Taylor had been on doorsteps of the hospital there is nothing that could have been done to save his life.
Though Beard didn't get to talk to her son the day he died, she later received a letter from him dated Jan. 17, the day before he had the aneurysm.
Unlike some of the prior letters, where Taylor described his struggles with being away from home and problems he was having dealing with the program, his last letter was uplifting.
Beard said Taylor's last letter revealed he had finally found peace.
"Life is going good for me ... I feel alive for the first time in a long time," Taylor wrote in the letter.
"For the first time I am even enjoying school a little bit," he wrote.
Connie Stucker, Taylor's sign language teacher at Keller High School, said though Taylor struggled with school, he was always enthusiastic and full of energy.
"He wanted to make life exciting," Stucker said. "He was a fireball."
Stucker said she saw glimpses of leadership skills coming out of Taylor when he was one of her students.
"I could see potential ... he was very enthusiastic," she said, "perhaps not so much about my class, but with life in general."
Beard said it is comforting to at least know her son was happy in the end.
"That last letter really pointed out his state of mind and where he was with himself," she said. "He said he felt like a little boy again."
The next day after Taylor wrote the letter, he started having a horrible headache.
Classmates recall Taylor screaming in pain," What do I do? What do I do?"
Because the school was so far away from a hospital, counselors put Taylor on the van and arranged to meet paramedics, who took him to the nearest hospital. Taylor was then airlifted to a children's hospital in Nevada.
Scans revealed the aneurysm ruptured two-thirds of Taylor's brain.
Beard said the memory of seeing her little boy hooked up to life support with tubes running out of him still haunts her.
After learning there was nothing doctors could do to save Taylor and being told he was brain dead, Beard decided to donate Taylor's organs.
"I made the decision to give life to someone else," she said.
A couple of months later, Beard received a letter from a father of four who is a firefighter, thanking her for the gift of life.
Since then, Beard began researching brain aneurysms. In June, she e-mailed the Brain Aneurysm Foundation with the idea to have a memory run for Taylor.
"I just want to honor him. I wasn't there with him to say a final goodbye," she said. "It wouldn't matter if only one person shows up. It's for Taylor."
Christine Buckley, executive director of The Brain Aneurysm Foundation, said events like the one for Taylor is important to help raise awareness and educate the public.
"The key is early detection," Buckley said. "We want people to be detected before they rupture. If you can diagnose it, outcomes are so much better."
Buckley said money raised at Taylor's benefit will go toward education, research grants and support groups.

I am no doctor but I have seen what a such problems in the head can do with the behavior people do. Maybe his drug and alcohol use was a symptom. There are six grades of this illness. Asymptomatic; or minimal headache and slight nuchal rigidity are the first disturbances people have and some might self-medicate themselves with alcohol and drugs if they live in one of the states where pain-killers is hard to obtain without a perscription. Maybe residential schooling could have been avoided if they had scanned his brain months before.

It reminds me to advice parents to rule out all kind of other kind of illnesses before they react on the behaviors of a child. It is a very tragic story.

[Ursus]

Memorial event will help raise awareness about brain aneurysms, BY SUSAN MCFARLAND, The Keller Citizen, January 18, 2011

One year ago, Dana Beard received the phone call every parent fears.

"You need to get here. Something bad has happened," a school counselor told her.

Beard, a Keller resident, was on a business trip in Shreveport, LA, more than 1,300 miles from the Utah school her son was attending.

When Beard arrived, Taylor Mangham, 15, was on life support with no chance of recovery after suffering a brain aneurysm. He died Jan. 19, 2010.

Saturday, Jan. 22, to celebrate his memory, the Taylor Mangham 1st Annual 5K Memorial Run/Walk for Brain Aneurysm Awareness will be held at Bear Creek Park in Keller.

Taylor's story

The week before Thanksgiving 2009, Taylor's mom made arrangements for him to move to Virgin, Utah and attend Liahona Academy, a residential treatment center for troubled teen boys.

Beard said Taylor, a Keller High School student at the time, was struggling with drugs and alcohol.

"He came to me and said, 'I need help. I can't do this on my own,'" Beard said.

Through counselors, Beard heard about the Utah school and both she and Taylor knew it was an option to help him get on a better path.

Early morning Nov. 21, 2009, Beard woke up her son when the transport team arrived. He left without a struggle.

That was the last day she saw her son alive.

"I felt so helpless because I wasn't there when he passed," she said. "That bothered me more than anything. I didn't get to say last words."

Doctors told Beard her even if Taylor had been on doorsteps of the hospital there is nothing that could have been done to save his life.

Though Beard didn't get to talk to her son the day he died, she later received a letter from him dated Jan. 17, the day before he had the aneurysm.

Unlike some of the prior letters, where Taylor described his struggles with being away from home and problems he was having dealing with the program, his last letter was uplifting.

Beard said Taylor's last letter revealed he had finally found peace.

"Life is going good for me ... I feel alive for the first time in a long time," Taylor wrote in the letter.

"For the first time I am even enjoying school a little bit," he wrote.

Connie Stucker, Taylor's sign language teacher at Keller High School, said though Taylor struggled with school, he was always enthusiastic and full of energy.

"He wanted to make life exciting," Stucker said. "He was a fireball."

Stucker said she saw glimpses of leadership skills coming out of Taylor when he was one of her students.

"I could see potential ... he was very enthusiastic," she said, "perhaps not so much about my class, but with life in general."

Beard said it is comforting to at least know her son was happy in the end.

"That last letter really pointed out his state of mind and where he was with himself," she said. "He said he felt like a little boy again."

The next day after Taylor wrote the letter, he started having a horrible headache.

Classmates recall Taylor screaming in pain," What do I do? What do I do?"

Because the school was so far away from a hospital, counselors put Taylor on the van and arranged to meet paramedics, who took him to the nearest hospital. Taylor was then airlifted to a children's hospital in Nevada.

Scans revealed the aneurysm ruptured two-thirds of Taylor's brain.

Beard said the memory of seeing her little boy hooked up to life support with tubes running out of him still haunts her.

After learning there was nothing doctors could do to save Taylor and being told he was brain dead, Beard decided to donate Taylor's organs.

"I made the decision to give life to someone else," she said.

A couple of months later, Beard received a letter from a father of four who is a firefighter, thanking her for the gift of life.

Since then, Beard began researching brain aneurysms. In June, she e-mailed the Brain Aneurysm Foundation with the idea to have a memory run for Taylor.

"I just want to honor him. I wasn't there with him to say a final goodbye," she said. "It wouldn't matter if only one person shows up. It's for Taylor."

Christine Buckley, executive director of The Brain Aneurysm Foundation, said events like the one for Taylor is important to help raise awareness and educate the public.

"The key is early detection," Buckley said. "We want people to be detected before they rupture. If you can diagnose it, outcomes are so much better."

Buckley said money raised at Taylor's benefit will go toward education, research grants and support groups.

For more information go to http://bafound.donorpages.com/taylor or call 817-368-3603 or 817-832-2573.

Susan McFarland, 817-431-2231


© Star-Telegram

I am no doctor but I have seen what a such problems in the head can do with the behavior people do. Maybe his drug and alcohol use was a symptom. There are six grades of this illness. Asymptomatic; or minimal headache and slight nuchal rigidity are the first disturbances people have and some might self-medicate themselves with alcohol and drugs if they live in one of the states where pain-killers is hard to obtain without a perscription. Maybe residential schooling could have been avoided if they had scanned his brain months before.

It reminds me to advice parents to rule out all kind of other kind of illnesses before they react on the behaviors of a child. It is a very tragic story.

So very very sad. There have been a few deaths due to brain aneurysms in kids attending programs, often associated with and/or brought on by conditions of acute physical stress and exertion.

Just off the top of my head, there was the case of 16-year-old Phil Williams at Elan School, who collapsed while being pummeled in The Ring in 1982, and 14-year-old James Roman at Hyde School, who collapsed during a Sunday pickup basketball game in 1988. I am sure there are others that I can't remember or am unaware of.

This question always remains ... less than satisfactorily answered:

Did the program take the child's complaints and symptoms seriously, and get them to a hospital as expeditiously as possible?[/list]
Often, given the nature of programs and the mindset in operation therein, kids' complaints of physical distress are flat out disregarded and/or ignored. The inherent assumption is that they are malingering or faking, exaggerating...

[Pile of Dead Kids]

*flumph!*

[SEKTO]

The Liahona was an object which God gave to Lehi, a prophet in the Book of Mormon, and his family as a guide. It is first mentioned in 1 Nephi 16:10. The Liahona is described as a round ball, made of brass, with two pointers that gave directions, similar to a compass. In Lehi's language, "Liahona" meant "a compass" (see Alma 37:38). However the Liahona differed from a compass, because it only worked if Lehi and his family were being righteous (see 1 Nephi 16: 28-29, and Alma 37:40) and exerted the proper faith. They also received instruction through the Liahona. In 1 Nephi 16:29 it says that there was an area on the outside of the Liahona where writing would appear and change from time to time. It is also mentioned that there was sometimes writing on the pointers.

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Liahona_Compass

[Ursus]

Pic from the OP article:

Taylor Mangham and his mother, Dana Beard

© Star-Telegram[/list]