Honor Beauvais’ every breath was a battle as a snowstorm battered the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.
The asthmatic 12-year-old’s worried aunt and uncle begged for help clearing a path to their cattle ranch near the community of Two Strike as his condition worsened, his fragile lungs fighting a massive infection. But when an ambulance finally managed to get through, Honor’s uncle already was performing CPR, said his grandmother, Rose Cordier-Beauvais.Sign up to receive daily headline news from Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
And in a scathing State of the Tribes address delivered last week in the state Legislature, Peter Lengkeek, chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, accused emergency services of being “slow to react” as tribes struggled to clear the snow, with many using what he described as “outdated equipment and dilapidated resources.”Article content
The firewood, said OJ Semans, a consultant for the tribe, came in the form of uncut logs, which were not immediately usable. The tribe wrote in its letter that volunteers continue to work diligently to get the wood cut.Article contentIt all started on Dec. 12, when the tribe shut down offices so people could prepare for the first onslaught.
Then, as fierce cold and storms descended across much of the rest of the country, claiming at least 40 lives in western New York, a phenomenon called a ground blizzard hit the reservation on Dec. 22. Strong winds blew existing snow on the ground, and visibility fell to a quarter mile, Lamers said. The tribe also alleges Congress is at fault for not changing rules that allocate how money from a tribal transportation program is distributed among the nation’s 574 federally recognized tribes.Article content
The other victim, his brother-in-law, Douglas James Dillon Sr., called for help during the first storm because his asthma was flaring up. But getting to the hospital would have meant being carried more than a quarter of a mile over snowbanks to a deputy’s patrol car.Article content
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