The Source Staff

A story in a recent edition of the Bend Bulletin detailed the circumstances surrounding the death of Sergey Blashchishen, the 16-year-old Portland boy who collapsed on a day-long hike with one of the area's increasingly infamous “hoods in the woods” intervention programs. Perhaps the only thing more disturbing than his final hours in which he reportedly faltered, vomited, collapsed and died while his councilors looked but did little to intervene was the circumstances around his “admission” to Redmond-based SageWalk Wilderness Schools. According to an official affidavit quoted in the piece, Blashchishen was unknowingly enrolled in the school for, among other teen ailments, being “uninterested in studying or thinking about his future.” The school contracted with a pair of “transporters” to yank the teen from his bedroom while he slept. After being dragged blindfolded across the state with no information as to where he was headed, he was sent out with little to eat, but a 40-lb pack on his back, for a grueling hike from which he would never return. It's not an isolated case. Another “student” died at a now-defunct Bend wilderness school in 2000 after being pinned to the ground by a staff member.