Sweat Lodge Deaths Reports - NYTimes.com

In the reports, which were released Monday by judicial order, a woman whose husband was heating rocks for the ceremony told investigators with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office that she was able to pull one woman from the lodge. But, said the woman, Debra Mercer, when she told Mr. Ray that she needed to open up the back of the lodge to get the two other victims out, he replied that it would be “sacrilegious” to remove the tarps and blankets covering the wood frame structure and that she should do so only if necessary.

As Mr. Ray sat in a shaded chair outside, Ms. Mercer told investigators, she opened the tent and she and her daughter, Sarah, 17, and others helped pull out James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee and Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y.

Mr. Shore and Ms. Brown were pronounced dead a short time later. The woman who had been removed first, Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minn., died nine days later in a hospital in Flagstaff, Ariz. She never regained consciousness after being pulled from the lodge.

via nytimes.com

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