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Guard: Procedure Followed In Beating

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By MELISSA NELSON The Associated Press

Published: October 10, 2007

PANAMA CITY, Fla. - A juvenile boot camp supervisor charged with killing a 14-year-old boy testified Tuesday that guards would have stopped hitting the unresponsive teen if he had just kept exercising.

'At any time he could have walked, got up, finished the run,' guard Charles Helms said when a prosecutor asked him how Martin Lee Anderson could have gotten out of the situation.

Helms said he did not initially see Anderson's condition as a medical emergency, and his main concern was to get the teen to comply with orders. He said Anderson showed 'signs of life' throughout the altercation.

Helms is the highest ranking of seven ex-guards and a nurse on trial for manslaughter. Guards repeatedly hit the boy and forced him to inhale ammonia after he collapsed while running laps in January 2006 at the now-closed Bay County camp.

The nurse stood by watching the altercation, which was videotaped. Anderson died early the next day at a hospital.

The nurse also testified Tuesday, crying as she told jurors she thought she did everything she could to prevent the boy's death.

Prosecutors say the guards suffocated Anderson by covering his mouth and forcing him to inhale ammonia fumes. Guards say they were just following camp procedures to restrain him because he was uncooperative.
Defense attorneys also say the death was unavoidable because he had undiagnosed sickle cell trait, a genetic blood disorder. The usually benign disorder can cause blood cells to shrivel into a sickle shape and limit their ability to carry oxygen under physical stress.

Prosecutor Mike Sinacore asked Helms whether he provided paramedics and emergency room doctors with the details about what happened to Anderson.

'When the paramedics arrived you did not tell them about all the times Martin Lee Anderson had fainted,' Sinacore asked Helms.

Helms said he did not.

'You did not tell them about all the time you applied ammonia and the nurse did not tell them in your presence about the ammonia. You did not tell them you covered his mouth when you applied the ammonia. You told them he was exercising and he collapsed,' Sinacore said.

Helms said that was correct.

Nurse Kristin Schmidt said she did not observe anything medically wrong with Anderson throughout his 30-minute altercation with the seven guards. Schmidt testified that Anderson did not appear to be injured by hammer and knee strikes, the application of ammonia capsules, wrist restraints and other techniques used by the guards.

Though he complained of not being able to breathe, Schmidt said, he was able to breathe fine and was able to answer questions.

The video shows the guards hitting, kneeing and dragging Anderson's limp body around the exercise yard as Schmidt watches.

Schmidt said her job did not routinely require her to interfere with actions of the guards. She was only to interfere with the guards 'if I saw something that would cause an injury,' she said.

Schmidt also was accustomed to youths faking illness to avoid exercise, she said.

'There was at least one on every intake day,' she said of her 11 years at the camp.

Schmidt said she did not observe anything inappropriate in the guards' interactions with Anderson. 'They all looked like nobody was getting hurt,' she said.

Schmidt said she had no training in sickle cell trait and it was not indicated on Anderson's medical forms.

When Anderson stopped answering the guards' questions and became limp, she instructed guards to call 911, Schmidt said.

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