In a civil suit filed in 3rd District Court on Wednesday, Daniel Dastrup claims he suffered a severe herniated disk in his lumbar spine after performing about 200 baptisms on Aug. 25, 2007. The then 25-year-old claims some of the young men and women he completely immersed in water in the name of the dead weighed as much as 250 pounds.
When he asked to be relieved, an officiator at the LDS temple in Raleigh, N.C., where the baptisms were performed, told Dastrup to continue, the civil suit states. Another man who asked the officiator twice to take over for Dastrup was also told no.
The day after finishing the numerous baptisms, Dastrup said he suffered so much pain he could not sit up.