AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas board has suspended the nursing license of Camp Mystic’s co-director in a scathing order that accused her of not helping children evacuate during last year’s catastrophic floods that killed 25 girls and two teenage counselors.
It’s one of the state’s first actions against a member of the family that owns and operates the all-girls Christian camp since the July 4 flood. Last month, Camp Mystic canceled plans to reopen this summer in the face of outrage from victims’ parents.
Mary Liz Eastland, a registered nurse, served as the camp’s medical officer. She has previously acknowledged in court that she never tried to reach children and staff in the low-lying area of the camp as the predawn flooding along the Guadalupe River worsened. Her father-in-law, Camp Mystic owner Richard Eastland, also died in the flood.
Allowing Mary Liz Eastland to keep practicing nursing would constitute a “continuing and imminent threat to public welfare,” according to an order signed Tuesday by Kristin Benton, executive director of the Texas Board of Nursing.
Eastland “abandoned the campers and staff when the camp site began to flood … by evacuating herself and her children to higher ground without providing any assistance or direction to all of the other campers and staff,” the order reads.