I am amazed at how little "common sense" people have. As part of a SAR team we are called to help those who are missing. One incident really drove home the idea that people are not prepared to leave thier homes for any reason.

A mother and son decided to take a bike trip through the woods across the street from their home. It was a warm fall day and the two were wearing short sleeve shirts and shorts when they left their home around 4:30pm. Daylight savings had just happened within a week and it got darker an hour earlier than they were expecting. They crossed the street in front of their house, road 100 yrds over a dirt road through a field to the edge of the woods. They followed the dirt road into the woods. Once the road entered the woods, it went down hill and only down hill.

They got into the woods and it got dark due to the heavy trees and daylight savings. The temp started to drop. They continued downhill on the dirt road. Eventually the road emptied into a brair tangle at the edge of a swamp. They picked up their bikes and carried them through the swamp. They stopped after a while and huddled through the night. At daybreak they got up and walked out of the swamp to a nearby road. Law enforcement was patroling the perimeter and picked them up around 7:30am.

If you are lost in the dark and you have been following a road downhill to get where you are, wouldn't you head uphill following the road to get out? If you followed a road until it turned into a swamp, wouldn't you stop there instead of carrying a bicycle through briar tangle and swamp?

To make matters more exciting, the mother was reportedly afraid of the dark but she started out on a bicycle trip at 4:30 in the afternoon when dark was at 5:30. Instead of cycling in open areas, they headed into heavy forested area. The boy was reportedly taking meds for mental stability but was unable to take his meds because he was in the woods all night. So you have a mother who is afraid of the dark so is not very mentally stable taking care of a boy who is mentally unstable without his meds.

The temp dropped that night. We were wearing sweat shirts while searching for them. They were wearing short sleeve shirts and shorts adding mild hypothermia to their mental status. Additionally they missed their evening meal so were potentally developing low blood sugar conditions.

As we were walking down the road in the woods, we could see streetlights to the left. So at most we were 500 yards from streetlights. Wouldn't you head towards a streetlight instead of through briars in shorts?

Both survived with only scrapes from the briars and mental exhaution from their ordeal. All of this within 1000 yards of their home.