Liz Neuman's passion for pursuing an active and healthy life led her to popular self-help guru James Arthur Ray -- and ultimately to her death after attending a sweat lodge ceremony with other Ray followers in Arizona.
The Prior Lake woman's death Saturday was the third fatality among the group participating in the Oct. 8 retreat near Sedona, a town that attracts many in the New Age spiritual movement. Crowded into a sweat lodge with dozens of other followers, the 49-year-old Neuman fell ill from dehydration and lapsed into a coma.
Neuman family attorney Louis Diesel said a lawsuit is possible pending an investigation by the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office. Authorities are treating the deaths as homicides; no one has been charged.
"We'll take appropriate steps to hold accountable those individuals responsible for Liz's death," Diesel said Sunday. "It was a totally preventable death."
About 55 to 65 people had packed the sweat lodge at the Angel Valley Retreat Center rented by Ray for a five-day "Spiritual Warrior" retreat. Authorities were called with reports of people without pulses and not breathing. Twenty-one people were taken to hospitals for symptoms ranging from dehydration to kidney failure. Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee, died. A nurse Ray hired was directing CPR at the scene.
Neuman was briefly conscious upon being removed from the lodge but quickly fell into a coma and never regained consciousness, Diesel said. Surrounded by family members, she died at a Flagstaff hospital from organ failure as a result of dehydration, he said.
A formal autopsy will be conducted; Brown and Shore's autopsy results are still pending. No official cause of death has been released. No one else remains hospitalized.
"She was in excellent physical condition at the time" she attended the retreat, Diesel said of Neuman.
