My name is Ben Schwartz. I am a graduate student studying film production at City College of New York. I am in the process of writing a short fictional film script. Very briefly, the story is about a father and a son on a trip several days and dozens of miles out in the wilderness. One gravely injures his leg, forcing the other to figure out how to get them both out alive. The story ends with the healthy one being forced to abandon the injured one and go on ahead alone.

I am posting because I want to consult survival experts on my story and ask the following question: what physical conditions would have to exist to create a hopeless wilderness emergency in which the healthy character has only one choice - leave his companion to die or stay and die together.

Any advice you can give would be greatly, greatly appreciated. Please reply to my real email address.

Thank you,
Ben Schwartz

That scenario happened in Turkey a few years ago when an Air Force officer, who was stationed there with his family, and his son were skiing at a resort and became disoriented in a blizzard. They ended up in a survival situation for several days and the father ultimately left the son in a animal den type shelter and went for help. The father was found in an abandoned camp by a group of local hunters/loggers (something like that). I have the book stuffed in storage somewhere. link to "Miracle on the Mountain" at Amazon.com

One part you may include is that after a certain time going in the wrong direction people start believing they are on the right track again. This is only administered when the person discovers it and alters course. So something simple as just taking a wrong bearing, one of the two forgot rainproof weather gear =slight hyperthermia-denial.

remember a survival situation doesn't happen because of 1 big thing but mostly because of smaller things happening in a row. That and taking wrong decisions

Check out the scenario in "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson. Joe's companion was forced to cut the rope they were abseiling on thus (he thought) condeming Joe to a huge fall into a crevasse high in the Andes. This is a true story and the escape that Joe pulls off with a massively broken leg is miraculous.
BTW its obvious that the (American) producers of a certain climbing film ripped this story off in the usual Hollywood "Take a good story and turn it into bo****ks mode."