Family, friends and the national wildland firefighter community are mourning a Caldwell boy and a Boise wildland firefighter who died during a family hunting trip this weekend.
Elmore County Sheriff Mike Hollinshead said Armani Castro, 12, and Gene Mitchell, 46, appeared to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, but an official cause of death has yet to be determined.
The two hunters were reportedly using a heater without opening the windows in their trailer, which was not equipped with a carbon monoxide detector. Deputies found their trailer early Monday morning at a campsite in Atlanta, near Middle Fork Road.
Theresa Saint said that her fiance, Gene Mitchell, an engine boss for Red Truck Wildfire, took her son, Armani Castro, a seventh grader at Syringa Middle School, on a hunting and camping trip in his new trailer. Mitchell purchased the trailer from a private owner about a month ago. Both she and Mitchell camped in the trailer several times earlier in the month when the weather was warmer and a heater wasn’t necessary.
She and Mitchell recently reconnected after a brief separation this summer, and Mitchell hoped the trip would be a good chance for her son and fiance to bond.
Saint, a Caldwell resident and a night-shift nursing assistant at St. Luke’s, called the Elmore County Sheriff’s Department late Sunday night when she realized that Castro and Mitchell hadn’t returned from their trip. Even then, she thought they might have simply become lost or stayed longer to get a deer.
“I was holding on to any kind of hope,” Saint said.
Deputies contacted Saint around 3 a.m. Monday with the news that they had found a trailer, but that they couldn’t yet identify the bodies inside. It wasn’t until Saint’s sister went looking for Castro — at Saint’s request — that she saw Mitchell’s trailer surrounded by caution tape in the middle of the road, and knew.
“All I can hear in my head is my son,” said Saint. “The most horrible pain I’d have to go through is to lose my child, and then to lose my fiance of four years ....”
Saint said Castro was a serious, respectful boy who loved choir, hunting and dreamed of serving his country as a Marine.
Mitchell, who grew up in Glide, Oregon, was a wildland firefighter for more than 15 years, fighting fires around the country with Red Truck Wildfire and PatRick Environmental.
“He taught me so many things,” said Saint. “He knew the most beautiful places on earth and taught me how to hike and hunt. He could out-hike a Marine.”
Saint said that he loved everything to do with the outdoors. They had hoped to get married at Kane Lake, one of their favorite hikes to take together.
“We were just starting our future, and I lost him,” Saint said.
In 2015 there was a total of 393 deaths resulting from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most such deaths occur during the winter months. Saint said that many friends have already contacted her to say that they were purchasing alarms for their trailers, something they had never known they needed.
“I hope I can just save families from going through this horrific experience that I’m going through,” Saint said.
Saint has yet to schedule a service for her son. She and her family are working to obtain a temporary visa for her son’s father, who was deported back to Italy in 2008, and hopes to attend his son’s funeral.
Red Truck Wildfire is organizing a memorial for both Mitchell and Castro on Nov. 11. People from around the country are expected to attend and John Hoxsey of Red Truck Wildfire said that the public is welcome to join them. A time and location for the service have not yet been set.
Hoxsey said they plan to drive Mitchell’s ashes, along with the firefighter flag, in his old engine to return to his father in Glide. Next summer, Saint and Mitchell’s sister also plan to scatter a portion of Mitchell’s ashes in the Sawtooth Mountains, one of his “favorite places on earth.”
