Kati Kim Survival on 20/20 Next Month

Kati Kim, will tell her story of survival in southern Oregon wilderness on ABC's '20/20' next month | OregonLive.com

This was the incident where the family got stuck, father eventually tried to self-rescue and died, family rescued shortly after he departed for help.


http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northw...next_month.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/4kpmxnz

Worth reading the comments which include responses from Kim.

This will definitely be interesting. I've driven just a little bit of the road they set out on after turning off I-5 and it's amazing to me to think they thought it was a main road.

The thing to remember when watching and reading such accounts is the lens through which you are viewing it and their recollections and assessments, both from those involved and those putting the story together for the audience.

I will certainly watch this and I think especially for those that have joined this forum since that occurred in 2006, it would be informative as it is reference fairly often in our threads.

Thanks for the heads-up, Doug. I'll definitely tune in.

I'm from Hood River, Oregon and was riveted by that situation as it unfolded.

Kudos to Kati Kim for speaking out, hopefully the recounting will save lives in the future.

Everything is different depending upon which seat you occupy ... Even with the possibility of flawed memories, it will be good to hear the first hand views of Kati Kim rather than the presumptuous views of folks who weren't there.

The comments and Kati Kim's responses in the Oregon Live article are a very good read.

The Oregon Live article is indeed good.

There's also a fair amount about this incident in Wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim

Thanks for posting this.

Mike

I'll be looking forward to her account. My heart still bleeds for her and her children for the tragic, needless loss of a husband and father. Hopefully his loss will at least teach people a lesson that may save another life.

I hope the focus of the documentary will be on that this was a preventable tragedy resulting from a multitude of errors leading to the predicament and then a lack of supplies that should have been in the vehicle.

i just stumbled upon this on tonight's listings. Thanks for the head's up Doug!

Am watching it right now, too.

Did not realize this was going to be a 2-hour special.

"Wrong Turn: The Kati Kim Story"

They showed a photo that James took of Kati and the kids through the window at Denny's -- their last meal before getting stuck.

Interesting to see the reenactment.

Here are some stills on the 20/20 website:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/slideshow/kat...erness-12869992

No spoilers please!!! Being on the west coast, the show will not air here until later tonight.

You don't know how it ended?

What's to spoil?

If you're worried about it, stop reading this thread or any others on the Internet that start with: "Kati Kim."

Yes I know how it ended, however I would like to think that there is a lot of info being told that we all were not privy during the situation and afterwards and it would be nice to hear and see it all later tonight when the show airs instead of piecemeal details here.

Unfortunately, we're not all on west coast time.

Stop reading.

40mins into this and already I am angry.

I was not impressed either - a rather sensationalistic, slow paced and repetitious accounting; I didn't last past the first hour. But, if I understood it right, this was not a case of "death by GPS;" Ms Kim misinterpreted the road map.

Well yes but James apparently turned off that Coast road onto a logging road where they eventually got stuck.

Such a waste of life. James walked 16miles and ended up just 2miles from where he started (as the crow flies).

Viewer comments at the 20/20 website. Interesting because I don't think most of those commenting have been dissecting the Kim story for the past four years as so many of us have. They are mostly disparaging of the Kims for putting their children in harm's way.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/comments?type=story&id=12884927


I'm disappointed that 20/20 did not devote at least the last 5 minutes of the show to educating viewers on carrying survival kits in their vehicles as well as the basic tenants of survival (shelter, water, food). And they should have added a section to their website for viewers to learn more about being equipped to survive.

And I just noticed that ABC did not produce the documentary -- they bought it from an outfit called "Firecracker Films" that is based in London.

http://www.firecrackerfilms.com/category/news/

I was not impressed as well, both with the production and the way Ms. Kim came off.

Still, bottom line IMO is that the Kim's were not stupid or negligent, they were just moonbeam West Coast types who didn't know any better and paid the price for multiple mistakes and misfortunes. IMO they coped as best they knew how. All of us can glean some lessons from their ordeal.

Unfortunately the 20/20 documentary was made for ratings not a survival lesson or the multitude of avoidable errors that got them into the predicament in the first place. My head spins on why they didn’t stop WAY sooner and figure out how to get turned around, even waiting for daylight to turn around if they didn't have high quality flashlights with them to safely evaluate the situation.

Even the drama with the bears illustrates the rating vs. educational value. Maybe some mention of how not to attract bears unless one wanted some bear stew.

I often watched Mr. Kim covering the computer industry on CNET. I recall following the search for his family as it unfolded, ultimately ending in his death.

You might question any number of their decisions including his last one to leave the car in search for help. Ultimately, it may have been foolhardy, but I feel like he was brave in trying to seek rescue for his family in the end.

If nothing else, I became a reader of sites such as ETS, in the wake of this. I prepared emergency kits for myself and for my family members. Like Glock-A-Roo said, if nothing else, we can learn from their experience. Hopefully, that means the lessons of their tragedy may save another life someday.

I respectfully disagree. They made some decisions with a complete absence of common sense.

I've driven a small portion of that road, closer to Merlin, on a sunny August evening. I can't imagine what it would be like in the middle of winter.

Precisely. The value of continued discussion of this tragedy is to avoid recurrences. There was so much media attention paid to the Kim tragedy when it was ongoing, I'll bet it already has saved other lives and will continue to.

I've shared the 20/20 piece on my Facebook page to hopefully generate further discussion among friends and family.

Aside from whatever I think about the Kims' decisions during the debacle, I'm glad that she is speaking publicly about it. It can't be easy.

Powerring - welcome to ETS.

So easy to be a Monday quarterback with something like this. I do appreciate that this forum is a sounding board for people from all walks of life.

I like that the little girl said she would one day like to work in Search and Rescue and that Kati Kim now carries a small survival kit in her car. It may well be better late than never, but I believe her story may help others prepare for the curve balls that life sometimes throws at us and I'm glad she told it.

Mike

I guess some folks just ignore the inner voice asking the question 'what the hell are you getting yourself into', probably because modern technology (GPS may lead some over a cliff without the application of common sense) and motorised transport gives a false sense of security just to push onwards. Navigational ability is not really a female attribute as their brains are wired up differently to males (less spacial awareness but with more communicative skills) and males have now, I'm afraid, are now somewhat repressed/embarrassed to question their own decision making processes for fear of being made to look foolish in front of their partners.

Please check me to see if I am correct, but if I got the show right, they were not following a GPS. Ms Kim said, something like. "I saw this distinct road on the map," and evidently, because it was "distinct," felt it would be suitable to follow. If that indeed was her decision, it wouldn't matter on what medium the "road" was displayed - her decision to follow it was the critical factor.

I won't even comment on your differential wiring comment. I have associated with far too many superb female navigators, both on land and at sea. I have also been around some guys who could not find their way out of a broom closet if they had a GPS and a painted red line, with a million dollars on the other side of the door.

IF THE STORY WAS TOLD CORRECTLY, after they turned around and got back to the intersection, why didn't they backtrack to follow their path back to the interstate?

This simple act would have covered up all of the many critical mistakes that were made.

i watched with my 20 yo daughter. she asked a bunch of questions and had a bunch of light bulbs go off. it got her thinking. for that reason alone, i think it was valuable.

there were too many unanswered questions for my liking, and the Visuals didn't seem to match the story i was expecting to hear it did do a good job of showing the domino effect of bad decisions. the 20/20 commentators made a few enlightening revelations after it was over that, had they been included in the doc, would have made it a stronger educational piece.

I was very unimpressed with the show. It was produced not by ABC but by an outfit called "Firecracker Films." The events had been the subject of an exhaustive report by the Oregon State Sheriffs Association, but I doubt the producers ever bothered to read it. I realize that no one ever has "total recall," but Kati Kim's story told on the 20/20 show was very different than what she told Tim Evinger, sheriff of Klamath County, Oregon, when he interviewed her six weeks after she and her kids were rescued.

In the 20/20 show, she was asleep for much of the time they drove into the backcountry. In 2007, she provided detailed recollections of what she saw on the drive. In the 20/20 show, they turned onto the logging road by mistake, because of bad signs and bad maps. In 2007, they took the logging road on purpose, hoping to find a lower-elevation route to Gold Beach.

I think what really happened is that they were in the grip of "Get There Itis." They really wanted to get to the Tu Tu Tun Lodge, which is the most luxurious digs on the Pacific northwest coast. They wanted to get there so bad that they ignored eight separate warnings, and common sense. And they were terribly unprepared, with two very young kids along.

A lot of us have made some bonehead moves, so it's not like James and Kati are horrible people. But to blame signs and maps and SAR, well that was just wrong. In the end, for all the media coverage, it's pretty outrageous that none of the reports said what needed to be said here. To that end, I wrote (and have just updated) a website about the events, Kim Tragedy. It tells the whole story, and has links to the relevant reports, along with a "Lessons to Learn" section that links to this website here, which I think is really outstanding. I've taken a lot of grief for saying what I think needs to be said, but the ultimate purpose is not just to assign responsibility but to point out the need for travelers to always use the most important survival tool we've got: The third digit of our I.Q.

Welcome to ETS, CWilson.

Thanks, Dagny.

I got here by a circuitous route. I hadn't spent any time on my Kim Tragedy site for several years, until about 10 days ago when someone told me about the forthcoming 20/20 show. I rolled my eyes and thought, "Here we go again." Went to the Oregonian's site and saw that Kati Kim was posting there, surrounded by what I can only describe as a portable pity party. (I'm really not that heartless, but the combination of crocodile tears and deflection has always excited my cynical gene.)

Anyway, I decided that I'd try to see if I could get any straight answers out of Kati (nope), and that I'd watch the show and update the site. There were lots of busted links, plus I was never really all that comfortable with having prominently speculated there about how she and James might have spent the afternoon of the day they were lost. I also wanted to sharpen the focus on "Lessons to Learn," and when I was doing that I actually followed one of the unexpired links over here.

I really think that, for all the details, the Kim story was remarkably simple: Casual city travelers get locked into tunnel vision, ignore elementary common sense." I think Kati has defensively stonewalled almost all of the questions about why they really wound up on the logging road, and the media has given her a "grieving widow wild card." All of which is understandable at one level, but when so many people followed this I do think a significant educational opportunity was lost.

That's really the rub. She irritates me with the evasions, but what really gets me is that here we had one time where the whole country is clued into a really clear and simple example of something that drives so many bad traveling decisions: overreliance on modern conveniences causing a lack of preparation, combined with "Get There Itis" (tunnel vision) causing people to lose all of their common sense. If she had just stood up to the plate and told it like it was from the start, I think she could've helped a lot of people. Instead, the media ignores the elephant in the room and the realities get batted around on fairly obscure websites. Darn.

Anyhow, this is a great site, and I know I will refer people here in the future.

20/20 certainly did a disservice to viewers by not devoting a portion of that broadcast to providing tips on assembling a vehicle survival kit.

Great that your website will steer some folks here.

Welcome to ETS and thanks for sharing CWilson. I too was disappointed in the manner 20/20 portrayed it and actually had more unanswered questions after watching the show. I live in Washington state and followed the story closely during the search and aftermath

I absolutely agree. The program also should have talked about how tunnel vision can override common sense. This is very insidious, and takes many forms, like speeding through rain and fog, and driving while tired. All of these things, and more, share a common root.

Good post dude.



This is a rare instance in which the term "tragedy" is used properly in our time. A tragedy is when the hero suffers horribly mainly because of his own faults and poor judgment, not because he was solely the innocent victim of chance. Good call.

Let me pop in here to make a comment or two.

A few days prior to the 20/20 show I got a call from an indignant Katie Kim who apparently didn't appreciate be cast as "unprepared" in my Lessons Learned post on my ETS Blog. It initially took me brief bit to put two and two together when she said "this is Katie Kim..." as I hadn't really given this incident a whole lot of thought for quite some time, other than to post the notice that started this thread. It was an "interesting" conversation that suggested to me that 3 years on she has rationalized herself into a new reality. <shrug> That's not uncommon among survivors, in my experience.

She has apparently just discovered my blog post and was upset that I had come to my conclusions without speaking with her and seemed not the bit put off when I explained that she made herself unavailable, so all I had to go on was published reports.

Bearing in mind that at that point I barely remembered what I had written, and since she was essentially asking me to revise my assessment, I told here I'd be happy to consider doing so, but would have to do an in-depth interview, which she declined, claiming she was prohibited from giving an interview by ABC. You can draw your own conclusions from that. As such I told her all I could do was watch the show and see if it changed my mind.

I can't say as my mind has changed. That she may have had more wilderness experience and skills than was originally known, doesn't change much, except to call into question the judgements made by the Kims even more. The lessons leaned are still valid and I don't think I have significantly mischaracterized her or the incident.

I have added a link to Charles' site, lot of good info there.

Doug - I re-read your column after CWilson posted here today and thought it a model of restraint and reason as it is not harsh but simply seeks to help others equip their vehicles so they could better cope if stranded for any reason, and enhance their odds of rescue.

The age-old silver lining of any tragedy: seeking its lessons to prevent recurrence.

There's been a lot of commentary on the Internet that Kati Kim would be justified at being indignant about, your column should be the least of her concerns. Fairly or not, she's now in the public eye and had better steel herself if she's going to be reading commentary on what was a highly publicized event. And thanks to her 20/20 appearance, still is.

If I were advising her on pr, I'd suggest she try to put the how and why they got stuck behind her and focus instead on the constructive lessons to be gleaned on how a vehicle and its occupants could be better equipped for being stranded for any reason.

In that way she could become a laudable spokesperson for preparedness. She's not a very effective speaker at this point but could be helped by media training.

I've been one of and maybe the most persistent of Kati's critics and interlocutors, but at this point I am inclined to move on. In the absence of real candor on her part, I feel as if I've reached the end of “What Can Be Known” road. My major questions are on my site for all to see.

If Kati has a change of heart and wants to be interviewed for real, fine, but I'm not holding my breath. Unless someone is planning to milk this into some sort of reality show or video game, based on false premises, I think we've seen the end of the publicity train. It's tragic and horrible that he died. Truly, I wish that on no one. It's unfortunate that it couldn't have been turned into a much more useful lesson.

CWilson: Welcome! I appreciate the insights you've shared with us here. I'm very impressed with http://www.kimtragedy.info/ -- that is a heck of a piece of work.

While it’s a relatively minor detail, I can’t find any mention of the black bears in any of the official reports after the incident. Seems sort of strange for that drama to first surface from Firecracker films. One report touched on that they honked the horn and yelled to hopefully attract rescuers to the area but no mention of honking the horn to scare the bears off from the area. If it was in one of the official reports please correct me.

link to the seeing the bears clip from 20/20

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/kati-kim-tells-heart-wrenching-story-family-ended/story?id=12884927

All I saw in the OSSA report was a mention of James Kim plucking berries out of bear scat. Didn't see anything about the bears outside the car playin' the theme from Deliverance on their banjos. That wasn't in the TV show? Well why not? I mean, if they were just going make stuff up anyway, might as well make it really good.

Is there a way to down load the 20/20 program onto a PC hard drive or DVD?

There were two things that bothered me from the time the Kims were finally found.

The first was, YES, the gate to the logging road was open, but in their entire lives in the U.S., had they EVER seen a public, town-to-town road with a gate across it?

The other was Kati Kim saying that once they were on the logging road, they had to stop several times to move large rocks out of the road so they could continue. (This was before memories dimmed and stories were polished.)

All the other wonderings and explanations pale beside that statement.

I have wandered all over the American West for years, exploring fairly remote ghost towns, and have driven over seriously rough roads at a crawl. I've driven up logging roads, fire roads, and long mountain and ranch driveways just out of curiosity. Sometimes I wasn't where I thought I was. Sometimes my vehicle just wasn't capable of going further, so I carefully turned around and went back the way I came in.

But NEVER, EVER, did I go up a road with deep potholes and large rocks in the road and think I was on any kind of inhabited town-to-inhabited town road.

Sue

Susan, at one point I thought I'd make a list of all the oddities, and decided it would drive me craz(ier) to go there. Then I told myself that maybe we're all pretty illogical if anyone spends enough time looking. Ain't that scary, though?!