http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/10/couple-lost-in-corn-maze-call-911.html

Includes an edited transcript of the 911 call

[snicker]

I'm going on a corn maze/pumpkin patch/vineyard tour in a couple weeks.

Perhaps I should go ahead and by a SPOT locater?

Or at least do the maze before the wine. And maybe pack a machete in case we need to shortcut through the corn.

I suspect we may be seeing the emergence of Eloi. Just think of the tragedy of the situation if a means of microwave electronic communications were not available to hand. To think that this dependency on this technology is no more than 15 years old, yet the decline in human problem solving skills so rapid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTBsm0LzSP0

Just imagine the panic!

Dagny -- take a GPS so you can back-track

They're definitely Not children of the corn!

Sounds pretty corny to me!

The thing that truly scares me is that these people have a child...

And they're breeding!

Since corn is usually planted at least a foot apart, and the rows are even further apart, why couldn't they just... well... walk across the corn field? It wasn't a ring of fire or anything.

What would they have done if they didn't have the cell phone?

"They're definitely Not children of the corn!"

No, they're IDIOTS of the corn!

Sue

Things can get rough when you venture into the trackless wilderness of an unexplored corn field

Maze solution:

Put your left hand on the wall to your left. Keep your hand on the wall and walk, following the left wall. Eventually you will come to the exit.

This is a-maize-ing. At least they had food on hand...

I weep for our future...

LOL

Maybe the maze was surrounded by a moat with sharks with lazers strapped to their heads?

We can laugh at this, but it is probably not uncommon for someone to become trapped someplace and just not know how to escape. Ok maybe the above story is over the top.

It reminds me of a friend of mine that got 'trapped' in a service elevator hallway in a high-rise office complex in downtown Chicago. He was working late one night when he had to use the bathroom. The bathroom was located down a hallway that locked from behind one way and had a keyed service elevator the other way. Normally, the door was propped open during the day by security. After hours, the door was locked for ingress, but unlocked for egress, trapping people if you didn't have a key for either.

For hours he made noise and waited, trapped in the hallway. Finally, around midnight, he got tired of waiting for help and kicked a generous hole into the adjacent fancy corporate lobby to escape.

Would all of my friends know how to escape from this situation? What if the building was on fire?

Well, one time I was on an escalator in Macy's. The power failed, and I was stuck for two whole hours...

That's nuthin', I was walking up the courthouse steps one day in Atlanta when the power went out. I was stuck there all day until power was restored.

In our defense, those things are pretty hard...

Need more chlorine in the gene pool.

A possible lawsuit might be on the cards with this one. The plaintiffs could pursue a breach of contract and even possible health and safety infringement law suit, which led to the plaintiffs severe mental and emotional distress, which required the plaintiffs to contact the emergency and rescue services. I suspect that the maize maze fell short of required public safety standards such as failure to correctly display the appropriate level and number of emergency exits, a lack of due care and attention and that as night time fell the maize maze route was not adequately lit properly which would have allowed the plaintiffs to continue on to complete the maize maze route.

Even more disturbing was the fact that the owners of the maize maze had failed in their duty to ensure that the plaintiffs had actually completed the maize maze (they had closed the maize maze before they had noticed that before the end of the business day that the plaintiffs were still inside the maize maze, leading to charges of neglectful abandonment by the owners) and therefore the contract arrangement between the two parties had been wholly negligent in order to maintain the plaintiffs safety and security.

Then there are the issues of having to face the global public humiliation and embarrassment as being perceived as being complete thicko's.


Fitch, Dewar and Crotch.

You'll pay us handsomely to argue the toss all day, to blame others for your own incompetence and stupidity.

OTOH, mounting a couple of IR or night vision capable security cameras overlooking the maze might not be a bad idea...

While you are trying to figure things out, your sobbing spouse has made a 911 call. Now what? Tell 911 to forget it [they won't of course]? Get into an argument with your spouse about the embaressment [I hope not]? Tell your spouse she and the baby are on their own while you leave them to solve the problem yourself the because you are a real man [not]?

Wouldn't there be a sweep of the maze by its proprietors come dark? Isn't there normally a count of who goes in and who comes out?

Me [hoping never to be in that situation], I'm considering tearing up / sawing off and lighting a few isolated corn stalks on fire; figuring that will deter bugs, light my way out, and probably get a lot of quick attention from the proprietors!

I've been to any number of corn mazes since my children were born. I've never seen one that counted people going in or out. Also, more than half of the ones I've seen have more than one entrance or exit.

Just think how awful it would have been if they had been trying to find their way through a government building with solid walls! And suppose the building had a cell phone-suppressant as part of the security measures... Do you think security would have found them before they turned into poor little mummified bodies?

These are the kind of people who have made America what it is today.

Forget trying to find a cure for the common cold, let's find a cure for idiocy.

Sue

They were "Stuck" in a 8-10 acre corn field, and the hubby could see lights. WOW. People should have to pass a test to be able to reproduce, and I think that damn corn maze should be on the test... Unreal.

As a city boy, I claim no cornfield knowledge. A country friend posted on FaceBook that trying to cross a mature cornfield is not easy, can have concealed dangers, would make you almost impossible to find by rescuers, and that almost any other option would be better.

I wonder if there will be rash of cornfield crossings by those "proving" they are better than the 911 cornfield folks?

A mature cornfield, particularly one punctuated by maze openings, is an impossibly benign environment compared to virtually any piece of wild real estate. The field is flat as a billiard table; you have no rocks, canyons, etc. How can it be any simpler?

Very strange situation. I tend to agree with Am Fear that legal concerns might have been involved but in quite a different way. The couple may have been worried about the liability to the owner of the maze caused by destroying part of it to escape. Its not much a a maze when there is an exit cut through the corridors. It would have been a passing thought, but I would have done it anyway if I considered it an emergency situation (hard to say with a three week old involved). Then again, I may be giving them way too much credit.

I have to believe the situation you described is a serious fire code violation in any municipality regardless of whether it is "after hours". The fire marshals and code inspectors I have known take their jobs very seriously. If that fire trap existed in my building, I would drop a dime on them in a heartbeat.

Isn't that fairly typical for buildings? You keep the people out who shouldn't be coming in (ingress), but you let the people who are already inside, out (egress). Where are the people that you are talking about? Trapped outside?

Corn maze update is even funnier than the original. It shows an aerial view of the maze.

Farm owner Bob Conner said he plans to put a marker on the spot where the family got lost, but hasn't decided what it will say just yet. "I don't want to offend them at all," he said. "Maybe I'll just say, 'The Famous Spot' and let people read between the lines."

As to liability, the corn maze is a 'waste product' after production of the corn. Anyone who is thinking about liability versus two kids (one a small baby) hasn't got both their oars in the water.

Dweste - I think your online friend was pulling your leg. Tell him to pull the other one-- it has bells on it and will jingle.

Sue

Danger in the corn maze - what about the dreaded wild corn boars? 400 pounds, 40 inches at the shoulder, sharp curled tusks, omnivorous, violent, and they feed at night. Fear the wild corn boar!

Corn boars are what we used to scare little ones with growing up; usually it took a few seasons for them to realize that boars didn't roam wild through rural Minnesota corn fields, and it was actually our small joke based on corn borers.

See if I share with you guys anymore!

[Apparently the California Razorleaf Corn has been developed to protect pot plants. And every so often there is a ten-foot deep furrow - moat filled with the tertiary crop: piranha whose flesh is sold world-wide as filet-of-tilapia.]

With All joking aside there are a few things more annoying then the people that called the police. Every Corn Maze I have been too have "Lifeguards" that watch above the corn for people in distress. Not to mention they almost always have had PVC Poles with flags that you can raise above the corn incase you give up. Not to mention what farm would allow people with a infant into a freaking corn maze.

Also yes corn is amazingly easy to go through. We use to cheat all the time and just push on through it for funzies.

HELLO K9!!!! Shall be the catchphrase for when people misuse 911 and spots and plbs from now on btw!

And when someone does something dumb, people will probably say, "She couldn't find her way out of a corn maze!"

And there's probably nothing wrong with taking a baby into a corn maze (they had an older boy, too) as long as the parents have an IQ at least as high as their shoe size, which apparently wasn't the case here.

Sue

I have to navigate distances farther than that inside my house. They could "see the lights" as they said, but couldn't get to them 25 feet away? "Help! I'm lost in my living room! I can see the lights of my family room but can't get there! Send a rescue team! I have a small child with me!!!"

I thought that INS (Interfering with natural selection) already had that honor, or does that only apply to people who get theselves stranded a ways out.

http://articles.latimes.com/1993-11-30/news/mn-62531_1_national-park-service/2

It's just got to be terribly embarassing when a dog has more intelligence than you, and has to come find you in a public area.

I'll bet the police dogs had a great time chuckling about their "rescue" around the 'ol doggie campfire that night.

It's NOT just me! WHOO-HOO!



If people are making money off their rescue, they need to be hit with the full cost of the rescue. And anyone who says different is obviously one of the problem people.

Many people seem to think that the money of OTHER people is in endless supply, but they want to keep their own. WA State is talking about turning loose a bunch of prisoners because they can't afford to keep them.

In case some people have missed it, the economy of this country is tanking, no matter what the government and media are saying. The Aspen Seven could probably have afforded to pay for their entire rescue, but thought it should be free.

Sue

You must live in a protective place. I've never seen any of that at any corn maze around here.


??? What farm WOULDN'T let a family into the maze? You must live in a REALLY protective place.

Yes, and they've been in the news a lot recently...

-Blast

Yes, indeedy!

Sue

Yes, as I pointed out in another thread, the occasional expensive high profile search gets a lot of play in the media. And even in the present economy, Aspen isn't exactly an impoverished area. In any case, the fact remains that over all, SAR is mostly done by volunteers. Quoting from the the article at http://www.dps.state.ak.us/PIO/TrooperTimes/ArchiveStories/12.18.07%20Avalanche%20Training.pdf

Alaska State Troopers rely heavily upon these
volunteer search and rescue organizations. By state
statue, the Department of Public Safety is responsible
for overseeing search and rescue operations within
the state. Sometimes that responsibility is shared with
the U.S. Coast Guard or the Air National Guard’s
Rescue Coordination Center. Seventy to 75 percent
of all SAR operations are done by volunteers on
behalf of the DPS and the Alaska State Troopers.
“Without the search and rescue volunteers, the
Alaska State Troopers would be extremely limited on
our ability to do search and rescues across Alaska,”

And

As of 2007, there are 45 volunteer search groups
throughout Alaska...............................
In 2006,volunteer search teams contributed to
more than 13,500 hours of actual search time. This
does not include time volunteers spend training.

(Emphasis mine.) By the way, I was one of the volunteers at that training event. I just didn't get my picture in the article.

Just in King County, in your state of WA, you have eight different volunteer units providng SAR support to King County Sheriff. See http://kcsara.org/units/ for more info. Why don't you consider joining one of those groups? You will learn some valuable skills, and get to hang out with a good bunch of people.

Nice idea, but my job is on-call 24/7, with as little as 5-30 minutes notice to hit the road.

Yes, it IS pathetic, isn't it? But in a 15% (some say twice that) unemployment area, I'm lucky to have it.

And AKSAR, thank you for the work you do and the people you help, whether they're idiots or not.

Sue

Exactly!!

I never considered stalks of corn to be much of a barrier. I was in the car driving back from a service call and had on some talk show and they played the 911 call.

I am astounded that a fully grown adult male would let his wife make such a call. You could just yell and get help.

Maybe it wasn't a matter of 'let'. Maybe he handed her the phone and took the baby, and said, "Call 911, I'm scared".

After some of these baby-guy rail crews... Crews complained that the drivers were turning on/off the car flashers (required in RR yards) without coming to a full stop. They also complained that they were getting hurt while getting in and out of the cars themselves. They also complained that they couldn't open the lift-up back luggage door without hurting themselves. But they let them operate 19,000-ton trains with four or five locomotives!

Sue

Why would a couple bring a 3 week old baby into a outdoor maza? Then complained "mosquitoes are eating us alive".

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
Albert Einstein quotes

Is the general public unfamiliar with the 'left wall' theory of mazes?

You'll be surprised how many can't even tell their left from their right let alone the 'left wall' theory..

Thats why there is a surprising quantity of shoes sold without shoe laces.

It's simple really. The left shoe is the one with the piece of hay stuck in it and the right has the straw.

I don't know about the general public, but I had never heard of it before. Did a little reading & learned something new - thanks .

I went to my first corn maze this year with the family and it was a pretty fun experience. At that one, they gave you a small map of the maze so you could navigate your way through ... which was possible once the kids finally admitted they were lost and relinquished the map!

Actually my son went back recently with a friend's youth group and did the maze in the dark with flash lights; apparently it was a bunch of fun.

Eeeeeeeeeek!

"HELLO, K9!"

Sue

Believe it or not a bunch of pre-teens managed it without a single 911 call .

No surprise to me,most 911 calls today come from cell phones which can at times be a life saver. I cover parts of 2 expressways, in years past it took till a driver got home to call in a MVA, today we get the call in seconds not minutes.

The down side is everyone has a cell on them and many feel the need to call in EVERYTHING, most of it BS. A person walking across a bridge can not stop to look at the leaves in the Fall with out some "good samaritan" with a cell calling in a jumper.

Good Samaritans with cell waste millions on BS calls each year.

We have got to the point where you just whip out your cell and you get instent help and the line between emergencies and non emergencies has been lost.

Years ago, I was working at a local "big box" store. I actually had an woman walk up to me, breathing hard and in a panic, saying she's "been walking around for hours" and "can't find the exit."

I'm thinking "This is a big box. Just walk to the wall, turn right, and walk until you find a hole."

These people are allowed to vote?

No wonder this country is so screwed up.

This whole story pissed me off. That's why I haven't written much. But unfortunately time hasn't dulled it down.

911 should have said "pick a direction and push your way through the corn. Here's the farmer's phone number." I don't know how the officer kept a straight face. I wonder if they were cited for a false emergency or something?

As for the infant, at least they didn't leave it in the car.

It's just a very young baby -- they've got plenty of time yet!

Who knows, they may have started out with having several children and these two are all they've got left!

Cynical Sue

There is a corn maze designed specifically for people like this.....