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Was it James Kim? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim
by datalus 8y ago
Was it James Kim?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim
- vesrah 8y agoOh, what, I grew up watching him on TechTV. I did not know he'd passed, let alone in this kind of way.
- creep 8y agoAh jesus, that is terrible. He believed he was 4 miles away from a town called Galice. How could this be? I have gotten lost on several poorly-maintained roads in my time in the Canadian rockies. To think this could happen to me and the people I'm with makes me feel ridiculous and stupid. What should a group of people do if they found themselves in such a situation?
- jrnichols 8y agoAlways stay with the vehicle. He set out to try to find help, and disorientation and delirium set in with hypothermia.
- curtis 8y agoKim did stay with the vehicle (and his family) for something like a week before going for help. I think this might have been the right decision at that point, because his youngest child was 7 months old and would not have been able to survive without food nearly as long as an adult would. Kim's wife and children did stay with the car and were rescued some time later. But at the point that Kim left the car he had to be thinking that searchers weren't going to find them in time. I've often wondered if Kim's fatal mistake wasn't leaving for help but rather leaving the road he was on and going cross country. By the time he made the decision to do that, his thinking might have been very seriously impaired indeed, though.
- always_good 8y agoInterestingly he walked 16mi and died just 1mi away from their intended destination. Can't imagine the horror of trekking through the wilderness, your family waiting in the car, to find help.
- tzs 8y agoThat's good advice if people are looking for you, or you are in an area where other people are likely to pass by and find you accidentally. But what if enough time is passed that searches will have been called off? This guy stayed with his vehicle for over two months, until he finally died from starvation [1]. At some point you have to recognize that help isn't coming. The question then is how to determine when it has reached that point. This should probably be part of planning for any trip where you might become lost and isolated. At the very least, find out how long they will keep an unsuccessful search going there. [1] https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/05/man_found_dead_in_truck_after_getting_stuck_in_snow_spending_nearly_70_days_in_remote_linn_county.html https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/...
- icelancer 8y agoVery easy to say from a computer. Not easy to say 168 hours after no contact with the outside world.
- donarb 8y agoUsually the advice is to stay where you are. This conserves energy and reduces the search area because most hikers leave for a specific destination known to friends. If you get lost and try to find your way out, you increase the search space. Build a fire if you can, a smoky fire is better because it can be spotted from far away.
- cstejerean 8y agoThat’s usually good advice but that also doesn’t always work. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/26/hiker-who-went-missing-on-appalachian-trail-survived-26-days-before-dying https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/201... She was 30 minutes away from a road and survived for 26 days but decided to stay put and wait for people to find her.
- bradknowles 8y agoThere are always exceptions to every rule-of-thumb. In this case, sadly.
- ada1981 8y agoHow sad this is.
- EdwardDiego 8y agoYet according to her diary she'd been wandering for two days prior before deciding to stop. The trick is to stop as soon as you realise you're lost. In the first instance, it gives you time to overcome panic.
- jeremejevs 8y ago> Adam now knows that at least three K9 teams came to about 100 yards of the camp. :(
- tzs 8y agoSpeaking of search space...I've wondered if it would make sense to establish a virtual grid in wilderness areas, based on GPS coordinates. Then establish a convention that lost hikers should move to one of the intersections on the virtual grid and wait there. An air search for an essentially a randomly placed point (the hiker) in a large area is very hit and miss. It is quite easy for even a trained observer to scan right over someone. It's much easier for an observer to search a fixed location. The searchers could first specifically look at the grid intersections in a given sector of the search before then doing the general area scan, and then perhaps do a second check of the grid intersections before moving on to the next sector. The idea is to have known places that will definitely be looked directly at by an attentive searcher during the search rather than just seen in passing in a sweep, that the lost person can find if they have a GPS (or if they have a map that has these places marked).
- moltar 8y agoStay warm and hydrated?
- whitepoplar 8y agoI keep one of these (an older version) with me when backpacking/venturing somewhere in the wilderness without cellular coverage: https://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Lightweight-Handheld-Satellite-Communicator/dp/B07CR7PL54 https://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Lightweight-Handheld-Satellite...
- maxxxxx 8y agoMe too. Definitely gives me a good feeling that if things go really bad I can call for help. Hope I will never use it.
- pigscantfly 8y agoIt's a really good idea to use it at least a few times in different conditions; you don't want the first time to be an actual emergency. I'm also a big fan of solo backpacking and carry one on trips.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI get 10 messages free each month so I often use some of them. It's the "SOS" button I don't want to use ever.
- whitepoplar 8y agoOr this if you don't want to pay for a subscription and/or only want to use it for search-and-rescue needs: https://www.amazon.com/ACR-PLB-375-ResQLink-Buoyant-Personal/dp/B006JXY0CQ https://www.amazon.com/ACR-PLB-375-ResQLink-Buoyant-Personal...
- pietroglyph 8y agoThere's some interesting history behind distress beacons that broadcast on 406 MHz without any subscription. It's a good example of successful Cold War cooperation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-Sarsat_Programme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-Sarsat_Pr...
- siruncledrew 8y agoDon’t underestimate distance based on what you recall or see on a map, especially in the wilderness. There’s times when people think it’s ‘only a few miles’ of a hike, but sometimes that can take a whole day based on the terrain, and you don’t want to find yourself still stuck in the woods when night falls with inadequate supplies.
- EdwardDiego 8y agoI learned the hard way that the only reliable estimate of distance in the bush is hours.
- vorpalhex 8y agoPrepare properly. I bring a map and compass anytime I go out for a hike, even if it's a local trail that I know well. If I am going outside of cell coverage I bring a 2m radio (that requires your ham license but it is very easy to get). Tell someone where you are going and give them a check in time. Always bring a decent knife (within your local laws), a fire implement, and a decent medical kit.
- pmoriarty 8y ago"I bring a map and compass anytime I go out for a hike" It's also a good idea to learn how to actually use a map and a compass. Doing so effectively is not necessarily the most intuitive thing in the world, and does take some skill.
- walrus01 8y agoSeriously don't take an ordinary passenger car up a dirt logging road in the Cascades, Oregon coast mountains, or Olympic peninsula mountains in mid Winter unless you are intimately familiar with the entire road, and have driven it many times before. There are huge dead areas of zero cellular coverage where your only option would be long range vehicle mounted vhf-uhf radio, or iridium satellite phone. I have a high clearance 4x4 with 31x12.5" AT tires and still wouldn't try to take a shortcut like that. Not so much because I'm terribly scared of getting stuck, in first gear, but putting on tire chains in a muddy slushy pacific NW winter is not really my idea of fun or a time saver.
- icelancer 8y agoYou should never travel on rural roads without a verifiably working satellite radio (or personal locator beacon) in the worst case scenario. For communication, I travel with my main cell phone, a backup cell phone / wireless hotspot with a completely different provider (T-Mobile + Verizon, lately), a satellite communicator (several links posted in this thread that will work just fine), flares and high-intensity LED road lights that have constant + SOS flashing patterns, two high-intensity flashlights, and a high-powered green laser pen for alternative forms of signaling. Additionally, you should obviously carry plenty of food, potable water, basic medical supplies including a round of antibiotics, tire inflation/repair devices, a multipurpose sharp knife, two long-lasting external batteries for your USB devices that can also jumpstart a car (super cheap on Amazon, surprisingly), and potentially a firearm if you're into that kind of thing and trained to use it. Standard prepper checklists will work here. It sounds like a lot, but even semi-rural travel 15-20 miles off marked and standard roads are dangerous as hell, as this story and others clearly can show. You will almost certainly never need all of your equipment, but if you travel even occasionally, you will absolutely need some of it - and you won't be able to predict which piece of gear you do need. It's about being prepared for a wide variety of events, not one severe event. Nature doesn't cooperate. EDIT: Forgot, pack a basic set of tools: Screwdriver with various bits, socket wrench (ideally with an extension), car jack, pliers, length of wire, length of rope, aim-and-flame extension lighter (vastly preferred to a handheld cigarette lighter and not any more expensive; get a flexible shaft if you want to be fancy and shell out an extra $2), tire iron (add a breaker bar, probably), and a stack of kindling, which can simply be a bunch of old or free newspapers.
- npolet 8y agoReally great advice here. Sometimes might feel a bit stupid having all that equipment for a relatively short journey, but so worth it when you do need it.
- icelancer 8y agoIt doesn't even take up much room, even if you travel with considerable water supplies (which takes up the most room and also is the most important, both for obvious reasons). Almost everything else on the list is space efficient and/or packs in specific areas in your car made to store things like tools, spare tires, etc. People have a lot of room in their vehicles that go to waste simply because they don't read user manuals.
- saudioger 8y agoWait by your car, start a fire. He would have lived if he did.
- consto 8y agoI wonder if a fake phone mast, similar to a stingray, would be useful for locating people lost in the wilderness. If the person had a powered on phone, and the area was located quickly enough, the device could at minimum tell you if you are hotter or colder. Use multiple and you could even triangulate!
- telchar 8y agoIf you put one on a helicopter or drone you could sweep a large area quite quickly. That could be especially useful in situations where a person wasn't planning to be in the wilderness and thus would be more likely to have a phone on them but not another GPS-enabled communicator.