Stupidity kills. Over and over and over.

This woman was both an experience runner and a medical student. Somewhere, she had to have come across the information that the desert is hot in summer. Some people even know that temperatures that are measured and quoted are measured 5 or 6 ft off the ground, in shade. Did she think that in the sun, or near the ground in the sun would be hotter or cooler?

She carried more food than water. You speed up dehydration by eating. If you can't be bothered to carry enough water in a waterless area, you cache it or have someone you know cache it for you, and you'd better KNOW they are dependable.

Getting dependable information from a person that is badly dehydrated and hyperthermic is not realistic. If the two runners had signed in with the rangers, the rangers should have known to ask where the other runner was.

Maybe she was just suicidal. That would explain all her actions, wouldn't it?

I'll save my sympathy for the people who don't stand on the tracks and still get hit by the train.

Cynical Sue