link

Again?

Thats what? 2 in the past year? 3? Waiver or not, that track record should be sufficient to show that they are negligent in their duties.

A survival school that kills its students. Thats pathetic.

From the Foxnews story

What I want to know of course is; were the survival school instructors 'Special Forces' types or were they pretending to be 'Special Forces' types just like in the Hollywood movies or on the Discovery Channel? Was the student going to get a boy scout badge for passing the course or is there more going on here than meets the eye. A lucrative contract overseas maybe?

From the Foxnews story

This is just unbelievably ignorant, this I suggest should be grounds for manslaughter charges. Ignorance is no defense against culpability nor is a liability clause.



If the students are not even allowed to carry a watch, which absolutely fundamental to any survival course kit together with a compass, even if it a SERE model, and a PSK on a 28 day course, what is this survival course fundamentally trying to achieve? Is it to allow its students to feel encroaching death through ignorance. Someone at this school has been watching to much 'Man V Wild'. Even Bear Grylls knows to carry a watch. All a rather pointless exercise anyway if that is the case.


As for the survival school course matra. It would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

This is a followup story to the guy who died on the BOSS course last year.

BOSS is one of the oldest survival schools in the US.
This does not excuse their screw up but they are no fly by night operation.

BOSS is primarily a primitive type school so their training does not involve a lot of gear. Students are expected to make and find what they need. Maybe they should have offered this as an advanced course with a prerequisit of taking more basic courses.

While BOSS was definitely party to this students demise I can only wonder how much previous training he had before this trip.
Perhaps he was taking a course that was over his head and BOSS should have known this before they started the course.

The BOSS staff should have noticed the students deterioration and pulled the plug on the course for this student.

The "more you know the less you need" mantra in quite valid and widely accepted but it turns out to be an ironic twist to this sad tale. This phrase or its philosophy are ubiquitous to almost all primitive schools.
Personally I agree with this mantra to some degree. Many people can carry plenty of gear and still get in trouble but the folks with experience and training can make the best of a situation with less. In fact in many cases their training helps them avoid the crisis all together.

I have just been on the the BOSS website. BOSS philosophy



The problem is that this Survival Course in which the student died was 28 days in duration passing through very difficult and inhospitable terrain - the Utah desert. Desert regions are some of the most difficult and dangerous terrain on the planet probably just after the arctic and antarctic regions. Who in there right mind would head of into the desert without any form of navigation be it instructor or student. What kind of crap does it mean when they say that backpacks are a recent invention and that to get 'back to nature' you won't need one on the course. Even the 3500 year old ice-man found in the Alps would have been better equipped than these people. To pretend that you are leaving the modern world to become one with nature by leaving your watch, your compass and your backpack behind is absolute B***s**t. The problem with this Primitive Survival School is that it seems they do not realize just how sophisticated the primitive people and the kit they carried, actually was. Primitive people have always used any advancement in survival technology. If they didn't there would have been no stone age, no bronze age, no iron age.

Maybe some of the instructors would do well to read;

The Art of Travel or Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries (1872)

available at http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/gutenberg/1/4/6/8/14681/14681-h/14681-h.htm

for some sensible advice on how to survive in difficult terrain without all the so called modern day backpacking contrivances or is 130 years old advice and technology still just a bit too modern.

"The guides did not want him to fail the $3,175 course."

With all the guides' "help", he still failed, didn't he? Did he get his money back?

BOSS says then can only drink water they find, then take them where there is no water.

"...participants can drink water at the source only and cannot carry it with them."

They have a container, yet can't take it with them. Smart!

"He seemed capable of completing the hike to camp that evening."
Exhaustion, cramps, vomiting, slurred speech, delirium, collapse, cardiac arrest... "BOSS instructors can give water based on their assessment of a camper's needs." Isn't DEAD a little late, after a poor "assessment"?

This whole situation was stupid beyond belief. All BOSS did was take money to put their customers into a dangerous situation. It didn't really teach them anything that they might be able to use in the future. That "toughing it out" crap is just that, and nothing else.

I almost said that they would be better off teaching their victims to use their brains, but with BOSS, that would truly be a case of the blind leading the blind.

Sue

Very few people are ever pushed to their limits to see just where these limits are. Those that are ie: Navy Seals, have people there to save them when they pass out underwater etc. If those people fail they are court martialed, punished, demoted and even jailed. A "survival" school can legitimatly develop a person's mind and survival mindset by pushing limits but to me it's primary goal should be training how to totally avoid those limits. This outfit seems to have evolved into a New Age self help cult designed to instill self esteem/ self awareness etc. rather than skills. Testing your limits should come at the end of a course when all you have learned can be put to good use reinforcing one's confidence and survival perpective. Allowing your client to die from lack of water just means you need to take a true survival course so that you don't go on negligently killing people

Ah, ok.

Changes things a little bit. They are still just stupid, rather than having gotten stupider.

EDIT with a question: Does anyone know if there are records anywhere of how many students have died as part of civilian and military survival training in the past, say, 20 years? Maybe broken down by school, season and cause of death?

I'm asking becuase I first learned about BOSS about 15 years ago, and they've seemed to have a reputation for killing students. That's how I learned about them, actually. I'm curious to see how others stack up.

Apparently the guides from this school would do well to read Codin Lundin's book and instead of depriving their students from water, make them drink even more than they want. A safer way to test your limits would be to try drinking like a camel for 10 min...