Sacramento Boy Scout Posthumously Honored Months After Deadly Camping Trip

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Boy Scout received a posthumous honor months after his death during a camping trip he trained long and hard for.

At a private award ceremony, 13-year-old Alden Brock's parents took home a Spirit of the Eagle award in honor of their oldest son. It's an award for scouts who die before their time.

Brock died when a flash flood swept through his New Mexico campsite while he slept in his tent. A new police report reveals the floodwaters turned his tent into a "wet cage" clinging to his body and fellow scouts like "Saran wrap."

Seven made it out alive, including Susan Traub's husband Jonathan.

"It could have been him; it could have been the whole scout troop," she said. "It was just really hard for him to lose somebody that was under his watch."

She says the only warning he had is the sound of rushing water.

"Usually my husband sleeps with earplugs in his ears so it surprised him that he even got out of his tent and heard it," she said.

She says he tried warning as many as he could and get to higher ground, but the floodwater swept four downstream, and Brock never made it out.

According to the report, the Philmont Scout Ranch campsite was close to a streambed that had flooded before.

The executive director of the Golden Empire Council of the Boy Scouts of America says the findings won't stop scouts from camping in the back country.