Survivalist Richard Code's final hours

Retracing the last steps of the Toronto man who walked into the woods near Huntsville and didn’t come out alive.

This person and event was previously discussed in this thread here (which was locked by the sheriff...and for good reasons)

This new article here today brings forth more information on Richard Code's final hours and makes for an interesting read.

Hopefully this thread's comments do not get carried away and have to be locked by the sheriff...

So many paople were quick to condemn/mock him (not this forum specifically), not so easy to do when you know the detail is it.

Thanks for posting this - very revealing.

Thanks Teslin.
I went back and read my comments in the previous thread again after reading the article.
My comments can stand.

Reading the article and the old thread (I won't feed anymore trolls... I promise!) it seems our collective initial estimates were pretty spot on.

No extra insulation (sleeping bag and so on) means you'll freeze to death unless you get that fire going. Which is not a task you should underestimate - the more you need it, the harder it is to make one.

A headlamp is not on the equipment list. Gathering firewood in the dark is close to impossible without a headlamp.

It was real grim to read the detailed description of how he struggled with no snow shoes. Skis would not be an option for him because those take much more practice. The article seems pretty much spot on about how hard it is to make progress in deep snow and what that will do to your clothes. The next opportunity I will test my favorite backup plan for snow shoes (a spruce bough about 3 feet long, lashed to your foot). I'm pretty confident that will work, but untested it is just vapor ware.

Which leads me to the subject of gaiters... the article does not go into that much detail of his clothing. Anyway, gaiters or the lack thereof is just a notch on the misery scale. (It could also be that his pants formed a good seal over his boots so he wouldn't need gaiters - we don't know).


This article was probably one of the best and detailed I've ever seen about such events. Thanks for posting it.

It's curious that this went so badly despite his having so much experience. The article mentions over 6 previous trips, with him studying and learning from each one.

Thanks Teslinhiker for posting this new information. The article is excellent and reveals some details about a mans survival skills, but much more about the human psyche.

Thanks for the post. It provides thoughtful information about this tragic situation.

He had a campsite in mind but his timing was off. He should have camped the first night at or near the point he turned off the snowmobile trail -- 20/20 hindsight on my part. RIP

Though the article does not delve into what Code's experiences were on those previous trips. I can tell you from personal experience that over the last 30 years, I have spent weeks and months in the outdoors learning bushcraft and I still haven't got it all figured out.

As with most cases of people dying out in the wildnerness, it is never one sole mistake that cost them their life, rather a series of events that lead up to it. This is what I always keep in mind when venturing out...

To me, what was most striking in the article was the last paragraph:

Whether a tent would have saved Mr. Code is a question no one would be asking had he only made it another 800 metres over open ground to the trailer park at the south end of Bear Lake. The resort, which was visible from where Mr. Code started his trip, was empty and cold, but the pay phone was working.


This serves to remind us that even when potential help is so close, you might as well be on the moon...

So what can we take from this?

The one thing I get is that survival is about staying alive; survival training is about learning how. Code put himself into an actual survival situation starting with his first step into deep snow. That may have been his intent, but by sticking to his plan of getting to that specific survival training location on the first night, he quickly got behind a survival schedule. He probably didn't realize he was in an actual survival situation from his first step into snow.

Survival is not a race. By attempting to stay on schedule, Code made it a race when he should have found a good spot and started surviving.

$.02 w/ 20/20 hindsight

From the article it seems that none of these other trips were in deep snow, or that's at least what I deduce from them.

His previous trip was in a very shallow layer of snow. Lesson learned 1: It is pretty hard to pick firewood from the ground when it is covered with snow (not that picking wood from the ground is your best source of firewood anyway, unless it's very dry).
Lesson learned 2: The limitations of a knife when it comes to producing lots and lots of firewood from standing trees. He aborted that trip after a very cold night and promptly bought an axe.

A lot of skills are transferable across the seasons. Still, winter, snow and low temperatures makes for a totally different ball game than the other 3 seasons. You need some additional snow specific skills, and your margin for error are much, much smaller. Not to ignore the lack of gear.

I'm sure he learned a lot from his previous trips. Unfortunately, he did not learn the most important lessons of all: Never underestimate what Mother Nature throws at you.

That was an informative and sad article. Thanks for the link.

My guess is that he had a plan and stuck to it, and that is what really got him killed. Surviving is about doing what you need to do to survive, not about sticking to the plan.

It seems unfathomable to me that anyone who has ever walked in snow more than a few inches deep would just wander out in the woods in deep snow without snow shoes. I have done it but after a hundred feet or so realized how stupid it was and turned back (I think I was about 19 at the time).

Its hard to know with any certainty what really went wrong, because the only guy that knows for sure can't tell us. It does appear it was a judgement problem. That's often a problem for certain personality types who just cannot admit to themselves that the course of action they have laid out might not be ideal and perhaps a different course of action is warranted.

To me it actually sounds like a planned suicide in the guise of a survival trip.

I'm struck by a couple of things:
First is that he had 'studied' survival but obviously he didn't cover some areas or he didn't incorporate that knowledge.

Basics like, how to dress. The classic Three-layer system of dressing: an under layer of sweat removing and insulting clothing tight to the skin, with a mid-layer of insulation, and a outer layer to block water and wind. Worn and well managed the outer layer would have made sure he didn't get so wet or been so exposed to the wind. A simple Stearns rain suit, about $17, might have done the job. It isn't breathable so you need to drive it more actively, opening vents to keep sweat from building up and closing them down when you cool, but our ancestors did more with less. That alone might have saved him.

It's generally a cold, miserable night without extra insulation to sleep in. A sleeping bag, and perhaps a tent and pad is the classic answer but a simple wind and water resistant bivvy bag can make a lot of difference. Even the simplest sleeping system, a tarp done up in a 'burrito roll' is a huge improvement over sleeping exposed.

The burrito roll, essentially rolling yourself into a tarp, is a great survival technique. In part because you can do it in the worse possible conditions of wind and rain and you don't need working fingers or a lot of brain power. Your hands are incapacitated by cold, your brain non-functional, shivering uncontrollably, if there is any life left in you you can still shake out a tarp, grip a corner (use your teeth if you must), and roll. Drunks, mindless and unable to stand, do it on cold beaches. Learn it, practice it a few times, carry a small tarp.

In an urban environment, or a dump site, you can burrito in a piece of carpet, between discarded mattresses, in old plastic sheeting, or climb into a cardboard box. The idea is to save your life by putting something between you and the wind/rain/cold.

In other words a $7 hardware store tarp or salvaged shower curtain might have saved him.

I didn't notice if he had any water. Did he eat snow? Waking up after a hard slog the day before and a miserable night I imagine he was thirsty. There are few better way of losing heat than eating snow. That's one of the classic survival manual lessons. If he did perhaps he felt he had no other choice.

I'm also struck by how rigid his thinking was. He planned a certain route and when he encountered deep snow he didn't go around it. Clearly he was working to a plan he had in his mind. He was rigidly set on carrying out his plan. IMO survival demands flexibility and an acute awareness of your environment. Nature is bigger and tougher than you are so you don't go toe-to-toe with it and try to bull your way through.

Had he gone around the deep snow he might not have got wet from exertion and/or melted snow. If he was dry, or at least drier, he would have had more energy to find proper wood, maybe a fire. At the least he would have had a warmer night and seen daylight with higher energy reserves. He might have made the trailer park.

It is hard to characterize the guy. I see a lot of your typical internet 'Google expert' sort of personality. But most of your people with Google PhD's don't actually go out and pit their expertise against nature. I'm not sure if it makes them better or worse. The guy had guts.

I suspect that he fell victim to a psychological trap known as the Dunning–Kruger effect. It is a case where a person knows so little about a subject that they have no way of knowing how much they don't know. Because of this they vastly overestimate their competency.

Imagine you don't know a thing about writing. You see people pick up a pen and make funny marks. So you pick up a pen and start making marks. Man, this is easy. Someone asks you if you can write ... and you say yes. They made marks and you make marks. You are completely unaware that the marks have meaning both by themselves and as groups. That it is a means of communication. As far as you can tell, you're writing, and doing a fine job of it.

You can see this when kids scribble imitating adults. The difference is most kids know it is make believe. Adults are often far more talented at fooling ourselves. A little confidence and anyway 'how hard could it be?'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

I suspect that the man didn't know enough to know that he was a novice. By the time it was perfectly clear that he was in over his head it was too late. Sad.

I strikes me that a single weekend spent with someone with experience could have seen the many small problems corrected and vastly increased his odds.

Edited for spelling.

I was snowmobiling one time with 3 others, and one of the sleds went a little off the packed trail and dumped over in 4 feet of snow. We had to stop and help. It would be hard to overstate the difficulty in moving around in snow that deep. Even though we could see the trail 20 feet away, it was all 4 strong men could do to get to the sled, tip it up and push/pull it back to the trail. We were all sweating and our hearts were thumping. Even in 2 feet of heavy wet snow, it takes a monstrous amount of energy to travel a relatively short distance. Like someone else mentioned, if he really wanted to stay out in those conditions, he should have camped early just off the snowmobile trail, and made a fire and a quinzee in a sheltered area near standing deadwood. Because he was wearing cotton, and had no blanket or tarp, he would still have had difficulties, but might have made it through the night.

Some years ago, I was trying to do a winter ascent of Mt Humphries in Arizona with two companions. We encountered deep, loose snow and I was the only one with snowshoes. I continued on, while my ocmpanions wisely turned back. Arriving at timberline, I stashed the shoes, as the summit ridge was blown clear by high winds. I literally crawled the last few steps to the summit.

Descending, I got to my snowshoes, and decided to leave them behind, since I was "going downhill." I plowed ahead, and soon a setting sun indicated that I would have to spend the night out, since I could see that I had progressed maybe about 200 yards in the last half hour.

I made a little burrow, roofed it with a tarp and went through a cycle of snooze, wake up, light the stove, make a hot drink, wriggle toes to avoid frostbite, and sleep again. In the morning I made much better progress and reached the parking lot at the Arizona Snow Bowl, nothing frozen.

I was a strange animal, a combination of turkey and hot dog, who managed to make enough decent decisions to offset the bad calls and to avoid disaster. I learned not to try postholing snow ever again.

The excursion was a training climb for the Mexican volcanoes in a couple of weeks later. Orizaba and Popo were much easier since the snow was harder and we had crampons and axes.

A few years later, I would often climb Humphries on a summer morning and mow my in laws lawn in the afternoon. It is a routine hike in the summer.

Living in the bush can be tough. Many people continually underestimate the amount of calories burnt and the tough task master that the bush is. hopefully his example will help others from wondering into the bush without proper equipment and training.

I came across the news story this morning and then tabbed over to ETS. No surprise, there was already a link.

I liked the news story because it was obviously unfinished, i.e., all over the place. It was trying to figure out what angle to take on this story. And I think that is much more revealing than a stock, fill-in-the-blanks story.

We're all trying to figure out how someone could perish so quickly. The circumstances were challenging but by no means insurmountable to a person with a bit of experience. So I begin to agree that some sort of "personal dynamic" may have been a very significant factor here. Something is out of kilter, but without real evidence I would not go further than that.

something to mull over is what state of mind you or anyone would find themselves in during a real survival situation.i'm not talking about lost on a hunting trip or hike where you have gear and can sit it out by a fire and wait for help or day light and walk out but something your tossed into with the panic level already high..if self control came in a bottle you could go off with that and a couple matches and do just fine.the problem is how to train yourself to pull out just not the knife and foil blanket when you need it but the state of mind to use them.at the lowest level there was for me the Order Of The Arrow in Scouts,so long ago i can't really recall which year.we were left alone in the woods for a nite.at the top was some military training where someone was screaming at this wet,tired,hungry person,me,"well what are you going to do now!!!"--i can't think of a program that offers the level of artificial panic that you would need to train yourself to work in a "normal" manor in a abnormal situation.i think this is what this unfortunate fellow was trying to do.

Art_in_FL phrased it beautiful how a mindset fixed at completing THE PLAN can kill you. I find myself pondering if his lack of flexibility was induced by his life situation, using his newly interest of outdoor survival skill as a test of character - and as a means to rebuild his character, his life and his self respect. His dedication to this project does seem almost pathological. But that is as far as I am willing to go as to speculate about what was going on in his mind.


In times of stress and less than optimal conditions (low blood sugar, little sleep, my kids are crying and so on) I personally find some tendencies to inflexibility and going into STICK-TO-THE-PLAN-mode. Sometimes this plan is less than optimal, and I try to spot these situations and ease off a little.

You need to monitor the balance between flexibility and determination. Sometimes you just have to muster the iron will to complete the chosen solution (and even a less than optimal one - whatever works, as long as you do it, and do it NOW!). Other times you need to open your mind to the world around you and let the obvious solution present itself. (Such as - go back where I come from, which is surprisingly hard for the average male. Yes, including me.) Which is exactly why the S.T.O.P. acronym was invented.

There is only one thing I would like to point out again.
He might have been deceived a bit by the weather and expected it to be much less severe.

The weather this winter was a bit odd. We had one very large snowfall very early in the winter and then we had very mild weather most of the time after that.
Even at the time he left Toronto it had been unseasonably warm.
It was mixed rain and snow that weekend in Muskoka.
It was not the normal cold and dry weather,and very unusual for Muskoka in February.

As you have all picked up from the article there were some other factors involved in his decisions too. Personal problems in his life.
When I first heard this story the thought of him being suicidal hit me, but reading it again I think he wasn't a suicide.

I think he fully intended to return and just got in over his head.

That had occurred to me too, especially considering his deteriorating physical condition. It would explain why he went so far into the woods so unprepared. Maybe he knew exactly what he was up to and wanted to make sure if he lost his nerve at the end it would not matter any.

There is just no way to really way to know for sure just what went wrong for him, while giving some thought to the idea that it went exactly as he had planned.

In trying to unravel this unfortunate's final hours, consider that his judgment was impaired by hypothermia and physical exhaustion. Extreme environmental stresses, including both heat and cold, affect the centers in the brain which allegedly conduct higher reasoning. Very few of us can afford any loss of this ability, in the best of circumstances.

From the article

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nati...article1521585/



I guess he really wasn't Equipped to Survive.

Incorrectly dressed for the conditions and without a means to make a warming drink efficiently using a metal cup or pot whilst in windy wet snowy conditions -5 to 5C (the perfect weather to get hypothermia) no wonder Richard Code froze to death.

I also think everyone is underestimating the influence the Survival TV shows may have had on this fellow. Rarely will you see these TV personalities be equipped with a Goretex Bivi, Goretex Rain suit, Gaiters, Snowshoes, Down Sleeping bag and mat, metal pot, thermos and stove etc because the survival show suddenly becomes a camping show.



And yes a lightweight tent would have saved his life rather than the downright almost useless proverbial space blanket nonsense. Its a ashame Mr. Code hadn't come across this forum for his info rather than the Discovery Channel.

I think people forget how long it can take to do even simple things like build a fire. Its not unusal to take 30 minutes or more to get a good fire going.

I can't help wondering how many others will try to prove that they could handle what he couldn't.

I take from his story that a key survival skill is flexibility: being able to recognize that you need to abandon Plan A, and to actually do so.

Odd, if accurate. It gave me a funny feeling.

Arthritis and CFS, then he goes out underdressed and undersupplied, doesn't evaluate the conditions properly, doesn't change his plans despite changes in conditions...

Maybe not suicide per se, but it almost feels like he didn't care if he survived or not. And that would be a really bad frame of mind to be in at the time.

Sue

Here is a quote from my favorite book:

"She could not understand what men were coming to nowadays; her own great uncle, Sven Rat-Nose, ... had fallen like a hero fighting the Smalanders three years after drinking the whole company under the table at his eldest grandson's wedding; whereas, now, you heard talk of cramps from men in the prime of life who were apparently quite willing to die, unashamedly, on their back in straw, like cows." The Long Ships, page 24, by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson.

He didn't die like a hero, which is quite a shame as it seems he had some sense of courage and determination. But at least he didn't die like a cow.

As a related point, when a "survivalist" *doesn't*: why is he still called a survivalist? Wasn't he more of an UnSurvivalist?

I suspect, it has been confided by a few of the more self-aware people I know, that a considerable number of people who are engaged in adventure type activities are in some way exploring their will to live. Some are willing to die if the terms are favorable. Quite a few people in 'survivalism' are simply looking for an appropriate setting to give up.

The diminishing prospects of the middle class and middle age whites, high unemployment, relative worthlessness of the individual and inability of people to find a place and make a mark are causing a lot of males to question the value of their lives.

Some are just waiting for a situation where they can go down in a 'blaze of glory', 'heroic action', 'noble sacrifice'. Death by cop, going postal, school shootings, and attacks on public buildings are the antisocial version. Running into a burning orphanage to save the children, and joining the military and falling on a grenade the much more socially positive side.

Going toe-to-toe with mother nature and falling short is somewhere in the middle. So far in the middle that the desire for an end may not have been conscious. He may have been in denial as to his novice status but he strikes me as having gone through enough that he was fairly self-aware. I suspect that at some level he knew he was taking a big risk. But I also think that at some level it didn't matter.

Gosh, Art, I was feeling pretty perky today until you called my attention to the swirling, sucking eddy of despair that is my wretched, useless life...but you do identify a significant re-interpretation of what we are about here. Add to that the observation that suicides account for more than half of the gun deaths in this country, one might conclude that the manufacturers need to add a suicide hot line button to the personal rescue beacon products.

I sure hope we are keeping in mind that Mr Code might have just exercised really, really bad judgement.

I agree...

I'm always happy to be the resident optimist and ray of sunshine on the board.

Several very good friends are LEO's.

I have noticed a sharp increase in single vehicle, single occupant motor vehicle accidents during the last few years in the news. When I asked the LEO's, they told me many more are actually going unreported by the news, and the number is more than ten times higher than five years ago for this area. Almost none of the occupants phone records show them to have been using their phones during the crash, but the phones were almost all used just prior to.

Many have taken a "don't ask, don't tell" stance as to whether said collisions are an accident, or an "accident".

Probably checking that their life insurance premiums were up to date. Getting killed by a pothole and not having life insurance could be a major headache for the victims family.

That could be part of the cause. Using a phone is dangerous, not because it takes up a hand, but because of the mental distraction needed to conversationally model someone who isn't present. That distraction continues for some time after the call is over.

Personally I don't think the "suicide" explanation is plausible or insightful for Code.

Neither do I. But I do believe his life situation may have contributed to his almost pathological devotion to hard core "survival" trips. A sort of everything else stinks, let's do THIS and show I've got what it takes to make it kind of response.

A lot of suicides are carefully choreographed so the incident can be plausibly considered to be accidental. Some of it is religious (especially by those of the Catholic persuasion), other times its financial. Life insurance companies take a dim view of suicides, and accidents for some reason often involve additional payout over some other kind of death. Many times the local coroner goes along with the accidental death scenario to spare the family needless turmoil.

I know this is an old thread, but I believe I have some insight that may be informative.

I don't even know how to start this post. I understand why he did things the way he did. I don't know if I can explain it well enough to help you guys understand too, but I think Code deserves that I at least try.

I'll start with the physical aspect of it. Code suffered from a medical condition that basically forces you to be lazy in order to have any semblance of a normal life--in more serious cases even that is out the window. Contrary to what the name implies, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is not a disease where you feel tired all the time, or become exhausted more easily than others, or need extra sleep. Rather, it's a disease of not only constant fatigue, but also after exertion there are days of...the best way I can describe it is fatigue so intensely profound that it is very extreme suffering, even at rest. It is not simply "miserable", it is beyond imagination and you're just screaming internally because the level of suffering is unfathomably high, and yet you're so weak that it's all you can do to take the next breath. It happens 24-48 hours after you exert yourself beyond your envelope of energy. This symptom is referred to as "post-exertional malaise", or PEM, and is considered by patients to be the hallmark CFS symptom. In order to avoid PEM, the person must self-limit their activities in order to avoid overexertion. While active these people appear healthy and normal, but if they do too much then the price is paid later, behind closed doors.

The situation is a perfect set-up for the patient to feel terribly lazy, day in and day out, and for the people surrounding that person to consider him lazy. Generally within the first few years of becoming ill patients will do multiple stints of pushing themselves to try to keep up with normal life, only to become sicker because of it. Each person finds they have to prove to themselves--multiple times--that this illness really can't be overcome by sheer willpower.

The thing is, for mild to moderate cases, you can do it for a little while; a day, maybe a few, before you crash. And so it becomes very important to the sufferer to be able to so something physical when they can, even though they'll pay for it later. It helps them feel like they really aren't so lazy after all. CFS is not depression; the people trapped by it are still eager to be active and fulfill their dreams, even the veterans.

By the time this story unfolded, Code was definitely a veteran at the illness. He knew his body's physical limits. The part about him being in bed for 2-3 days a month is very telling, because it means that he was so disciplined about his energy expenditure that only once a month he gave himself the luxury of pushing past his energy limits and then suffering the PEM that followed. Shoveling the driveway is a classic example. Can you imagine being so desperate to physically accomplish something that shoveling a driveway even when there's no need is enjoyable and worth the days of bedridden agony that would surely follow?

I can. I do. In my mind, that's perfectly reasonable and understandable.

Survival courses would have been out of the question--even if he could afford it, which it doesn't look like he could, the issue is that he could only expend a certain carefully allotted amount of energy and be at it only for a few days or less before he would crash. The way survival courses are set up he'd have likely ended up either being considered so lazy that they boot him out or being medivac'ed out because he'd exceed his limits and collapse with PEM. This line of thinking would seem silly to healthy people who knew him because he'd seem so normal otherwise, but that's only because people with CFS are usually very careful to make sure their PEM is a private experience.

So why would he intentionally place himself in survival situations when a medical condition excluded him from taking survival courses?

Well, survival courses were out of the question mainly because someone else would be in charge, dictating the tasks and the pace of the course. Code going out solo meant that he could strategize and plan for how to work around his limits, budget his energy properly, and he could rest as often as was needed. For someone with CFS those things make a considerable difference, so much so that a 4 day solo trip may have well been within his physical capabilities to get home before he crashed whereas a 4 day survival course was probably not even close.

At this point I'm reading over this post so far and realizing just how hard to believe this all must be for you healthy folks. As you've probably guessed by now, I, too, have CFS. I also know many others with this condition. I assure you, what I'm sharing here is not conjecture, but rather seeing the article through the lens of CFS 101. I've read the stories, I've known the people, and I've analyzed myself...what I'm sharing are just the basic things that are obvious to me and would be to any other CFS veteran who reads the article. I had been reading these threads before I could find the article, and became familiar with the events just from reading the comments, but when someone mentioned "CFS" suddenly it all made sense to me. And when I finally found the article I read it and wept. It's so clear to me why he did what he did in the way he did it, and it hits very close to home.

Finally I can get to the aspect of his excursion that has been discussed the most: his lack of back-ups such as tent, sleeping bag, cell phone, etc. The point was made here that people should practice survival skills in a safe manner and become experienced before betting their life on those skills. That reasoning is sound and I am not going to argue otherwise.

However, for the sake of discussion, here's some counter-reasoning from a CFS perspective. First of all any extra weight, even the most ultralight options, means more energy expenditure, which means less of a safety buffer of emergency energy to get home before crashing (read: collapsing with PEM).

Second, he could very well have decided that if rescue was needed he'd rather die than call in help. The medical community generally does not "believe" in CFS because their tests can't find anything majorly wrong, so there's a good chance that if he had been rescued it would be concluded (as many here have implied) that he was mentally ill and a danger to himself. While CFS is a neurological disease and causes difficulty thinking clearly and also short-term memory issues, patients have been shown to be mentally competent and are regularly cleared by psychologists as having no mental health issues. Even so, there have been multiple instances of someone with CFS being locked up in a mental facility simply because no physical cause could be found for their symptoms and subsequent behavior. That scenario is the worst possible nightmare of anyone with CFS and the general consensus is that we'd rather die than be locked up. It's more common in the UK than here, but if Code was at all familiar with any of the online patient groups during his decade of CFS he would have heard wind of the stories.

There's a final aspect of this....why he didn't take a sleeping bag or tent as backup...that I'm not sure I can explain but I will try. Has anyone here read any survival stories where the person accredits adrenaline to their survival? Or even more specifically, they wouldn't have been able to do _____ except for there was no other way and they knew that if they didn't succeed in doing ____ they would die, and somehow knowing they had to do it made them capable of doing the practically impossible? I strongly suspect that Code was relying on that kind of gumption to make his trip feasibly possible. That is, he would not have had the same fortitude and level of adrenaline sustaining him if camping gear was available as an easy out.

From everything I can see Mr. Code knew his physical limits very well and was playing right on the very edge of safety as far as exertion goes, but unfortunately his lack of wilderness experience and his errors caught up to him.

It is very possible that he had the mindset going out that death wouldn't be such a bad thing. Living with CFS can't really be called living--it's more like existing. I can't explain it without sounding all depressing and dramatic so I won't try. Suffice to say the desire to challenge yourself is very strong, and suicide is a leading cause of death for those with CFS. Put those two together and you get something like this. You'd think the medical community would wonder why a specific group of people with clear physical symptoms and a psychiatric clean bill of health are killing themselves. As an example, people who have been though cancer and chemo who have also endured CFS say that they would prefer the cancer and its effects any day, if that gives you some idea of the magnitude of the suffering. And there is no known cure, no method of relief.

The reason Code didn't let on about his suffering or tell people the name of his condition is obvious: it invites ridicule. People don't believe it, including doctors, and instead often heap on verbal abuse.

I'm sharing all of this here because it sounds like you all genuinely want to understand why he did what he did in the way that he did it, and I feel that Code deserves to have this perspective shared.

If anyone would like to read the article it can be read in full here (scroll down). If anyone is interested in reading factual information about CFS (as opposed to wikipedia and CDC info) the Canadian Consensus Criteria is an excellent place to start, you'll find it in this PDF starting on page 11.

I'd say that I'd be happy to answer questions but I feel pretty vulnerable posting this much and depending on the responses might find it all too stressful. This post has exhausted me and I need to go rest.

If Code had CFS then he had no margin for survival activities and could very well have been tempting fate since the medical community (especially in the UK) has nothing but derision to offer CFS sufferers. (my wife and I have 25 years of experience with this. Doctors can send me a PM if you want to object)

I think that's a very insightful thing to bring up Ann.

Now get your rest and don't have any adrenaline surges from checking for responses here. These folks will treat you a LOT better than your doctors :-)

A very interesting and insightful post, Ann. Perhaps I missed it previously, but I was unaware that he suffered from CFS.

Ann, thank you for the insight into this situation. You did all of us, yourself, and Code a great service. Again, thank you.

I'm sure I posted it, but perhaps it was at another forum. It seemed from the very first reports that it was a large factor in his death.

The basic premise; 'I can only learn survival skills in a situation where I'll die if they are poor' is wrong.

No one says a climber can't climb because they have a safety line, or a motorcyclist can't ride because he has a helmet.
Learn your skills somewhere safe.
qjs

@qjs:
Maybe so, but I think Ann was trying to give us some insight into Mr. Code's state of mind. This is interesting to me, since I'm considering volunteering for a local SAR organization. Understanding the psychological state of people who are lost not only helps us understand what led them into a dangerous situation, it helps us predict their actions and where they are most likely to be found.

Let me urge you to get involved in SAR. I predict you will find it highly rewarding. It is both highly physical and intellectually challenging.

Particularly on protracted searches, you are involved in mental chess games, trying to put yourself in the place mentally and physically occupied by the victim. These go on for a very long time, decades in some cases.

There are times when you need to go all out, and times when you need to become very still and think really hard.

Oh it was a very good post by Anne. I'm not knocking that. I'm just sayng learn in the right place.

you wrote:
>'Understanding the psychological state of people'

You should take a look at 'Deep Survival' that Doug recommends. I'm reading it now and it's an amazing book. Again and again people do things they KNOW are tantamount to suicide. But in the context it makes sense.
And it's frightening how just small things not going to plan, multiply to disaster.
A lot is from the SAR teams reports.
qjs

Thanks, qjs. I had forgotten about that book. It would be a good addition to my library.

I'd like to read this article, but it says I have to be a Plus Member of the Globe and Mail. I'd rather not subscribe. Does anyone have a link to the article that I might be able to read without a subscription?

Thanks,

HJ

I agree.



The article was posted in full here (scroll down).

Thank you. A well written article.

A shame, but indeed it doesn't sound like he really knew what he was doing. Books are wonderful things, but there is a danger of thinking you know more than you really do. It may all sound so good on paper, but Murphy is ever at your heels.

HJ

Thank you for mentioning the Dunning–Kruger effect. I've noted it before with noob hikers. Now I have a name for it.

HJ

COULD SOMEONE COPY AND PASTE IT WITH APROPRIATE CREDITS INCLUDED?

Ann posted a link above and as far as I know, the MODS here frown on posting complete news articles regardless of appropriate credits included.

Ann's link is working fine.

HJ

Ann,

You most certainly do have (more than just some) insight. Your post was one of the most cogent and articulate posts I've ever read on any forum. I want to thank you personally for your intelligent analysis.

HJ

Thank you for your kind words, everyone. I'm glad my post was a helpful contribution.

Thanks Ann for your lucid and detailed perspective.

Best wishes,

-john

Ann,

You've written one of the more courageous posts that I've had the pleasure of reading lately. Not only was it very well written but it provides an insight to a condition that that I (and I suspect too many others) never heard of before.

Reflecting back on folks that I've met over the years I get the strong impression that they were feeling and exhibiting symptoms of exactly what you so aptly described.

Postings like yours are one of the reasons that ETS is the wonderful resource that it has become.

Thank you for your efforts and explanations.

ps Welcome to the Forums (albeit a bit late).

Regards,
Comanche7