A KCRG investigation found that Hannah Jorgensen was supervising 14 students on the Lake Macbride spillway trip when Ahmed Osman drowned and Jorgensen died trying to save him. The figure matters because the youth-program guidance reviewed by KCRG called for no more than 10 students per adult on day trips for children ages 9 to 14.
That is why the Lake Macbride spillway case has drawn new attention now. The trip was part of the School of the Wild program run by the University of Iowa, which exists to expose children to nature. Under the university’s own guidelines, one adult should have been assigned for every 10 students on that kind of outing, a standard that matches the one used by the American Camp Association.
Investigators said the class stopped for lunch before Osman, who was 10 years old, waded into the water. They said he slipped and was pulled out by fast currents near the lake’s dam. When he got into trouble, Jorgensen jumped in after him. Students then used their teacher’s phone to call for help.
What happened next underlines how thin the margin was at the shore. Another bystander jumped in to try to save the student and teacher and made it back to shore, while investigators said that person stayed with the other 13 students until law enforcement arrived. By then, both Osman and Jorgensen were gone.
The question left hanging is not what the danger was. It is why Jorgensen was by herself with 14 kids when the program guidance set a lower limit for a single adult on a day trip like this one. Neither the University of Iowa nor the Iowa City Community School District had responded to the report, and that leaves the staffing decision at the center of the Lake Macbride drownings without an explanation from the people who ran the trip.
