Vegas man sues Mormon church for baptism for the dead injury

SALT LAKE CITY — A Las Vegas man filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the LDS Church, claiming he suffered a permanent injury while performing baptisms for the dead in one of the church's temples.

Daniel Dastrup, acting as his own attorney, said he was a volunteer youth leader in his North Carolina ward in 2007 and was asked to perform baptisms in the Raleigh North Carolina Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of the youths he was baptizing "weighed 250 pounds or more."

Dastrup says in the civil lawsuit that he was asked to perform about 200 baptisms and claims an officiator at the temple declined his requests to be relieved.

The next day, the man said he was in pain and later learned that he had a severely herniated disk in his lumbar spine. The church failed to warn him that "the repetitive motion required for performing baptisms for the dead could cause serious damage to a person's back …," he wrote in the lawsuit.

Among other things, he is suing for medical expenses for surgeries and loss of employment. The suit, which also lists his wife Stephanie Dastrup as a plaintiff, was filed in Salt Lake City's 3rd District Court.