Hi Everyone,

Like everyone I thought this was a crying shame. So I began "Monday morning quarterbacking". If you get in trouble on your boat out at sea, I was taught that unless it is sinking, you stay with boat. Rescuers will have an easier time finding the boat than you. Should James Kim have "stayed with the boat" or was his excursion the thing to do?

DHo
TheMightyHobie18 1067

As said always stay with the boat unless it is sinking.....

Sounds like sad news...... Do you have a link.

I have to say, as a dad and a husband, I might have done the same after so many days, even though one would have to think that searches would intensify as time went on. It helps reinforce for me that if a situation is looking bad - snow falling, unfamiliar road, conditions worsening - there comes a time when you just have to turn around, lest you reach a point of no-return. I assume, though nobody has said so, that there was no cell service in such a rugged area.

Sobering event for the holiday season - his family and co-workers at CNET appear completely shattered.

The lesson may be, as you say, stay with the boat. They found the car much quicker than they found him...

According to the article in the link I gave, their cell phone would not work in that area.

I understand how men think, but the parallel with boats is interesting. Even if his ship is sinking and supplies are gone and all looks hopeless, would it be appropriate for a captain to abandon his ship and his passengers/family to swim for some invisible shore in hopes of getting help? If it were my husband who wanted to do such a crazy thing, I would knock him unconscious and tie him up.

There was a sort of a parallel situation in a documentary that was on TV recently about a group that was climbing a mountain and got caught in a bad, unpredicted storm. After quite a bit of time had passed and things looked grim, one of the guys decided to climb down to get help. He ended up falling a couple thousand feet and breaking his legs. The original group that stayed together got rescued, and it was only then that the rescuers found out about the guy who had gone off alone. They finally found him, and he somehow survived (at least most of him), but it was a miracle.

What bothers me most about the Oregon incident is that this family apparently made more than one wrong turn, since they were supposedly on their way to a nice resort over on the Pacific coast. How do you end up going down an isolated, one-way logging road in a park? And it's not like there is anywhere to stop and ask for directions.

The other thing that bothers me is that apparently they had some way to make fire, since they burned their tires. So why couldn't they collect some wood and make MORE fire? And, of course, why didn't anybody see the smoke when they were burning tires? Maybe nobody was looking for them at that point? Maybe they used up all their matches getting the tires to burn?

I am sure there will be a documentary someday about this tragic event. Maybe the questions will be answered.

In the meantime, DON'T ABANDON SHIP.

>How do you end up going down an isolated, one-way logging road in a park?<
A TV station reported vandals cut the chain to gate of the logging road.

One thing I have not seen discussed is the fact that the wife burned tires to keep warm or melt snow for water. If you have ever seen a tire burn you know it produces an INCREDIBLE billow of jet black smoke and a fierce orange flame. How could any search team miss them if they burned 4 tires? It should have been visable for many miles and 4 tires in succession would take a day or two.

Hindsight is always 20/20, and I think there is a rather large difference between being lost in the outback and on the ocean.

The big question is wether they believed a rescue was underway, or not. If their relatives was the kind who worry and keep in touch, it would be safe to assume so. Then it makes sense to keep close to the car. If not..
The story dont say how long they stayed together, what the weather was like and how much snow there was. It dont say much about what experience he had with winter and the outback either. Did he know how far he had to travel before reaching help/shelter?

One big difference between the sea and the outback, is that on land you can return to the site. But swimming back to the boat is not an option. Finding a single person on land is not much easier than on the ocean, but dogs are amazing at tracking and thermal cameras in helicopters can search large areas quickly. Neither methods work well when searching for a swimmer. Spotting a swimmer in rough conditions is unprobable, but finding the boat is more probable (white hulls amongst whitecaps are not easy to spot btw.). So it makes perfectly good sense to stay with the boat if you want to be found. Hypothermia will also set in slower if you stay out of the water.

Mary, what did you mean by "I understand how men think". I am not out to argument, but it would be interesting to hear how you see "men" in this relation.
Finding firewood in the snow is hard, making fresh wood burn is difficult and the resulting fire give little heat. Stomping trough snow and breaking off branches is hard work, especially if you are going without food. As long as they could run their engine, using the cars heating system would be better and this is probably what they did. I think they was doing everything right once they got into this situation, until he left the car becouse they ran out of food. Food is very important in the cold.

How could they get sidetracked so badly that they ended up on a logging road?


In Norway we have a set of 'rules' for skiers who encounter bad weather. Most of them apply to this situation as well.

1: Dont go for extended trips without training
2: Always report your route
3: Respect the weather and the forecast
4: Listen to experienced skiers
5: Be prepared for bad weather and cold even for short trips. Always bring a backpack with the proper equipment.
6: Remember map and compass
7: Do not go alone
8: Turn around in time. It is not disgraceful to turn back.
9: Conserve your strength, and make a shelter in the snow if neccesary.

The cell phone angle is interesting in this case. Their cell phone never indicated that they had a signal but one distant tower registered them trying to connect. It took some sluthing but some techs found the attempt, determined the general area the attempt came from and told the searchers to check that area. That's how the helicopter found the car with the wife and kids.

Well, I think it is pretty obvious. If you have been sitting in your car with your family for a week, and you are all slowly starving and freezing to death, a man is going to feel it is his obligation to DO something and go to find help to save his family.

Isn't that normal for a man to think that way? What would you do if you thought your wife and daughter were going to perish?

A man obviously is more inclined to do something instead of sitting put, there are lots of examples of that. I dont know why it is like this, but I think "feel" is too weak a word to describe what happens. Applying Maslow to situations like this could be interpreted to show that men are more inclined to sacrifice themself for the group. Or perhaps it is as simple as higher thestosteron levels? I dont know..

Even more interesting, why do you think females dont show the same behaviour, generally speaking?




Whatever I could of course. But so would you, wouldn't you?


Perhaps Stein have some wisdom to shed on the subject..

I am reminded of several instances where the person swimming for help got there and sorted a desperate situation or was the only one to survive.
Skip must make the choices about chances. Was he thinking that there was more chance if he left for those who stayed?
He was right. The people who stayed with the car were as safe as they were going to be. If he went to get cell coverage they had two chances not one.
He placed himself in perils way for the love of those who stayed. Let's say he did a valiant thing.
Normally I am clear that I would stay with a floating boat. Turn it upside down to dampen wave action and arnage ropes to hold onto. Let out orange curtain and get on the VHF.
If I was thinking to leave the boat it would be because I thought I had the fitness, the boat was in the circumstances heading to a dangerous end where, if I left and swam quietly across a current I might end up in a safer place. There are, I bet many other permiatations that arrise. One thing is clear, the longer we are out there the more chance we have of understanding our safest actions. So do you know what, I am going sailing.

People die regularly in the "outback" in Australia during the summer months from having their car break down in 40 plus temperatures (often over 50). Their deaths are always caused from leaving their car and trying to walk to safety - disastrous decision - in those temperatures when walking in the full exposure of the sun they can lose their ability to make rational decisions in as little as 2 hours, and be dead in 8. The cardinal rule is ALWAYS stay with your vehicle, conserve energy, and keep out of the sun. When this procedure is followed rescue has always occurred, sometimes it may take days but by the conservation of energy survival is the norm, walking is a certainty - death -.

Maybe if they had a vehicle equipped with OnStar it would of had a happier ending. OnStar has the most powerful cell phone available...a full three watts of transmitting power. Not the 6/10ths of a watt in your handheld. They are useless if your slightly outside a service area. OnStar has been able to reach a cell tower 20 miles away with the antenna broken off in a rollover. They could of also used OnStar's directions service. The imbedded GPS gives the exact location. They wouldn't have gotten lost. Sorry for the shameless OnStar plug, but the system does work very effectively and has saved many lives. As the old saying goes....no brains, no headaches.

Women DO show the same behavior, when it is necessary. For instance, in this case if the husband had been sick or injured, perhaps he would have stayed with the car and kids, and she would have been the one to go for help, if they decided that leaving was the only option.

If it had been only the two of them, with no children involved, I think they would have stayed together, whether they decided to stay in the car together or leave together.

All I know is that it was a bad decision for him to leave. The family needed the extra warmth that his body could provide by staying in the car.

One other thing that I am wondering: This guy was a very high-tech person, being the senior editor of a tech magazine. So I would think he would have a car equipped with that Garmin computer/gps thing that tells you where and when to turn to get to your programmed destination.

However, even if the car DID have such a thing, I am wondering whether it would have worked in the wilderness area where they were, since they were off the beaten path and on unmarked roads.

And don't they have some way of installing some kind of chip in all cars these days so if you get lost, you can be found via satellite or something? Or to find your car if it is stolen or if you get carjacked or kidnaped in your own car etc.?

When Rick and I were living in Vail, Colorado for several years, our car was always stocked with blankets, water and some food, matches, a Swiss Army Knife, and some tools, in case we got stranded somewhere, because you never knew when the unexpected might happen.

The problem is tourists and people just passing through, who are not aware of the potential dangers of the area.

Right. I didn't see your post before I posted mine, but still I am wondering whether the onboard computer systems in cars work when people are out of range or in mountains or whatever. (Not that this car even was equipped with Onstar or any other GPS system, and we don't know.)

It would be the same thing with boats.

What it all comes down to is common sense. We can't rely upon technology to find us. It does not make sense to go exploring in a park in the winter and get off the main roads when you are en route to a resort over on the Pacific coast.

This is not a good situation for a wife to ask, "Why didn't you stop to ask for directions?"

As a technology professional, I think it’s important to reiterate that technology is no substitute for planning, preparedness, and a common sense. Yes, take full advantage of available technology, but know its limits and don't let it dull your common sense to the point that you rely solely on it. Technology that automates things for us has a terrible tendency to make us stupid rather than smart.

Two sadly fatal errors in judgment were made; gauge the conditions and be willing to turn back, and don’t separate.

Never start out on a trip of any length without giving thought to “what if something happens, what will I/we need, what will I/we do?”.

Hopefully this story will have a positive impact on at least a few peoples preparedness mentality when traveling.

You are totally right. And that is true many times more when you are on the water, because then you have that added factor of possibly SINKING in addition to starving and freezing. At least your car on land is not going to sink, so why would you abandon "ship".

Based upon this thread, I would say that people need to be educated more about this, both for land and water situations.

"Always step up into the liferaft" and "always stay with the car" may be right 90% of the time, but aren't always right.

In this situation, they weren't reported missing until 5 days later, and the search area was huge (~100 miles x 50 miles). If they didn't get the chance ping off the cell tower and their family didn't have the monster $ to pay for private helicopters to search for them, they might well still be out there. You can typically count on 3 weeks without food for an adult, but maybe not for young childeren.

I would have walked out too. It would have been better to walk out sooner - seven days of no food and high stress doesn't increase your strength or reasoning ability.

I remember having almost a story like that when driving to/in (?) Yosemite National Park in 1995. We got lost somewhere along the way and found ourselfs in increasingly dark and snow covered roads, winding our way up into the mountains (early spring time after sun set). The last road sign had passed a long time ago and we had wound around more bends in the road then I care to remember. I don't remember which one of us called "this is not good" first but we turned around and drove back to where we felt secure again. That time we got it right and arrived at the Yosemite camping ground at 1:30 am.

I always regarded that move as one of the smartest things we ever did.

We quickly put up our tent near some other tents and went into the sack to get warm and get some sleep, only to be woken at 7:15 am by an angry park ranger with a crew cut and his hat shoved over his eyes.

Point of this last phrase, sharing body warmth works and the release of having "made it" is enough to even mellow out dear old Wouter under an early morning cross examination by an "law and order" type of guy for not registering our tent with the warden at 01:30 the previous night !

Smart girlfriend I had back then. First thing she said to me when we ordered to step out of our tent was :"You shut up, and let me handle this." I don't think I had said anything yet.

Wouter