New technology for us to consider? How do you go hiking with a cat anyway?



From short article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/03/11/missing-hiker-huddled-with-cat.html

Longer article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/03/11/missing-hiker-huddled-with-cat.html

I am puzzled by the references to her history of mental illness. It doesn't seem responsible for her predicament, so why mention it?

Actually her medical history might be relevant. She spent her time in the "wilderness"(actually just barely within the Blue Range Primitive Area) all of a mile from the trail head, so for whatever reason, may not have been thinking all that logically. This was compounded by lack of coordination among the authorities, who spotted her car days earlier, didn't connect the dots, and towed her car from the scene before the search operation began.

Many persons with significant mental illness will stop taking their medication and end up in all sorts of predicaments including fatal ones.

She went hiking with a cat and a bag of pretzels. That is not responsible hiking?

It may be the case that she got lost and was unable to get back because of her mental illness. But then again it may not be. The article fails to make it clear. Instead, you almost get the sense that the writer is treating her health history like a scarlet letter. It invites us as readers to draw conclusions that we are simply not qualified to draw: do we have access to her current medical profile, are we investigator in the case?

In other words, if the SAR people or the medical people at the hospital said something to the effect of "she was not in a sound state of mental health," then the medical history would be more meaningful. Otherwise what evidence do we have that her mental health played a role? We don't even know what she suffered from, and whether she continues to suffer from it. Imagine someone dies in a car crash, and the news story says, "this person had a history of heart disease." Are we to surmise that this person had a heart attack while driving, subsequently crashing?

Let me clarify: what I object to is the writing of the article, which almost echoes the unenlightened 19th century attitude towards mental illness as some sort of black mark on a person's record. But these days any blogger with a laptop can play journalism, so why should we be surprised?

You make some worthwhile points, but the article mentions her condition only casually. It is useful in SAR to have some notion of a person's profile, including anything that might indicate whether or not the victim might or might not make rational decisions - so often SAR is a mental chess game, where you are trying to get inside the person's head, and deduce the decisions they would have made when faced with prevailing conditions. Something more specific than "mental illness" would have been better, but you take what you can get. It certainly does not seem that her actions were particularly normal - just off a trail that is a mile from the road and campground, and you stay there for more than twenty days?

People who are mentally ill just do not make rational decisions in many cases. I can understand why it might be deemed pertinent to the story.

Most reporting these days suffers from both political correctness and a desire to gloss over the details, while remotely mentioning the critical things.

If the woman was nuts and that contributed or led to the situation, they should just say so flat out. If not, it does not seem like it needed to be in the story at all.

Telling people you are going to FL and ending up in NM wandering around in the desert without appropriate gear does not seem like something a person acting in a rational way would do.That leads me to believe the mental illness aspect may well have been a very significant factor. The report may not have delved into that side of it much out of a misguided desire to avoid embarrassment to the victim.

In any case, delving into the thinking of someone who is in the clutches of mental illness really won't provide much of an answer. If someone is not acting rationally, there is just no way to "get" it.

Hikermor and Bob are concerned with whether her history of mental illness might have contributed to her getting lost. They may very well be right, but I am not concerned with this. I am concerned with the article's contribution to the stigmatization of people with a history of mental illness.

Look, by failing to make clear the connection, the article encourages people to attribute anything out of the ordinary that currently or formerly mentally ill person does to the illness. Why did Fred throw out that perfectly good burger? Must be because he has been seeing a shrink! He's nuts! Why did Mary get upset after I fired her? Must be because she was taking anti-depressants for a while ten years ago!

This brings back an attitude from an unenlightened age, when the mentally ill (or even perfectly healthy people who just did not adhere to social norms) got locked away. Once marked, always marked. In other words, it worked like a criminal record. Someone committed a crime some years ago. Anything he did afterwards will be given a negative interpretation. Oh, no, he's in our store! He must be here to rob us!

I'd challenge the writer to do a better job. If this woman's actions were a direct result of her mental illness, then the writer should state as much. Otherwise the article is just perpetuating this unenlightened attitude, and it's indirectly causing you to adopt the same.

Well, the other thing I was concerned with was cats... Aren't they warm and cuddly? Apparently they'll hunt for food on their own, too.

If I stuff one of our cats inside my sleeping bag I'd have a LOT more than hunger and cold to worry about!!! Ouch!!

Try this article. It may be more to your liking. I don't think the coverage is over emphasizing her mental state,pro or con; I do agree with your point that it should not be unduly emphasized. I don't think it has been.