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#179204 - 08/13/09 03:19 PM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: NightHiker]
Chisel Offline
Veteran

Registered: 12/05/05
Posts: 1562
Sorry if my comment stirred a small conroversy

I am not really condemning the woman. I am just spelling my fear if someone who deals with matters of life and death goes on to make all such mistakes. That is scary.

After spelling my fear I went on to analyze the story from anothe rangle. The other half of my post contains an attempt to find some justification or clarifiacation to why she did what she did.

Phillip
You are right that there is generally no connection between her job as a nurse and survival skills in desert condition, that is not what I meant.

I meant that a professional is supposed to have a minimum level of intelligence to make decisions in perplexing situations. A medic has to figure out someone's problem and try to cure it before someone dies. An engineer has to analyze a complex situation with many (almost chaotic) nature and draw a plan to resolve it. A business or financial consultant ... you know the rest.

In addition to that, you can add her medical knowledge of what happens to humans in that kind of harsh environment and link it to her decision to take such a trip in that time of the year in ONE car, and NO OTHER ADULTS.

I will NEVER take this kind of trip even if I was WAAAY more prepared than her, 'cause I can't guarantee that a heart attack won't choose that time to flatten me and leave the kid alone in the middle of nowhere.


That is what I meant.

And sorry if I confused anyone
That was just my 1.5 ¢

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#179205 - 08/13/09 03:27 PM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: Stu]
7point82 Offline
Addict

Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 478
Loc: Orange Beach, AL
NightHiker,
For what's it's worth my comment about piling on was not directed at anyone in particular; certainly not you. The members here at ETS seem to be far less eager to pile on that many other online arenas.
_________________________
"There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother." -Theodore Roosevelt

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#179211 - 08/13/09 03:53 PM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: 7point82]
philip Offline
Addict

Registered: 09/19/05
Posts: 639
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
> Everyone is entitled to their own opinion right?

And I'm very happy that's the case.

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#179215 - 08/13/09 04:17 PM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: Chisel]
Dagny Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 11/25/08
Posts: 1918
Loc: Washington, DC
Originally Posted By: Chisel

I will NEVER take this kind of trip even if I was WAAAY more prepared than her, 'cause I can't guarantee that a heart attack won't choose that time to flatten me and leave the kid alone in the middle of nowhere.


That is an excellent point. A lot of heart attack victims didn't know they had a heart problem, or the extent of it.

I camp in popular, developed campgrounds, hike with others and don't have children with me.

It's just a whole nother ballgame when a child is 100% dependent on you.

I hope this woman never Googles herself -- a particularly cruel modern twist on such debacles.




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#179218 - 08/13/09 04:49 PM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: Dagny]
Susan Offline
Geezer

Registered: 01/21/04
Posts: 5163
Loc: W. WA
"Maybe she simply got lost and didn't know how to locate herself."

She was there for several days, with the highway going roughly north and south on the west side, and the mountains on the east. The sun sets in the west. She was in sand after she left the road. Her jeep made tracks. All she had to do was follow them.

"It's not like she just drove out into Death Valley, she was in found in the southwest corner of Death Valley National Park."

Where she was found, it seems that she never actually went into the park proper, because I don't see how she got as close to Trona as she did from inside the park. She hit the very outside SW corner of it, probably accidentally. What she appeared to have done was just drive out into an unknown, uninhabited part of raw desert without a care in the world. She had a flat and kept on going. What was her plan if she had another flat?

Children are totally dependent on the decisions that their parents make, they don't have the option of making their own decisions, esp in cases like this. She made the decisions, he paid for them.

By the way, one article indicated that she used to live in San Antonio, so I would suspect that the desert wasn't new to her, which makes this incident stranger still.


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#179230 - 08/13/09 06:53 PM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: NightHiker]
Glock-A-Roo Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 04/16/03
Posts: 1076
Originally Posted By: NightHiker
...The ones who leave the safety of the travel corridors are the ones who end up in life or death situations because they didn't give the desert the respect it deserves.


Reminds me of a quote I've never forgotten from an old book on dayhiking by John Long: "the desert will have your respect, or it will bleach your bones".

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#179239 - 08/13/09 08:53 PM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: Susan]
philip Offline
Addict

Registered: 09/19/05
Posts: 639
Loc: San Francisco Bay Area
> By the way, one article indicated that she used to live in San Antonio, so I
> would suspect that the desert wasn't new to her, which makes this incident
> stranger still.

In Texas? Not a desert by a long shot.

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#179424 - 08/15/09 11:34 AM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: Chisel]
Brangdon Offline
Veteran

Registered: 12/12/04
Posts: 1204
Loc: Nottingham, UK
Originally Posted By: Chisel
If she is a nurse and she truely made all these mistakes, I feel worried about ptients in the hospoital where she works.
The opposite sometimes happens. Someone who is very competent and confident in one domain, assumes that competence carries over into another domain and comes a cropper when it doesn't. So I wouldn't suppose that her coming a cropper here means she is bad at her job.

And it sometimes happens that medical staff are brilliant at working with strangers, but go to pieces when the patient is a friend of theirs, eg another nurse. It can help to have a certain amount of detachment, and to consider problems dispassionately. That may have been a factor too: she may have been less good at her own survival than other people's.
_________________________
Quality is addictive.

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#179425 - 08/15/09 11:49 AM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp Trip [Re: Susan]
Brangdon Offline
Veteran

Registered: 12/12/04
Posts: 1204
Loc: Nottingham, UK
Originally Posted By: Susan
She made every possible mistake she could:

* Left no detailed directions where she was going;
Actually, she did. There were "family members' reports that she planned to camp in free sites and visit the Scotty's Castle attraction in the far northeast corner of the vast national park." That's not where she ended up, unfortunately. It looks like she somehow got lost.

She also sent a text message about needing to change a tyre. She was communicating.

Originally Posted By: el_diabl0
I think after the first day I would have traveled by night back the way I came, hoping to get back to the main road.
She didn't have a map or compass, and her GPS was part of the vehicle so she couldn't take it with her. She'd have been navigating blind. I don't know the area, but I imagine there was a risk she'd have ended up going round in circles, or sprained an ankle, or something.

It's worth noting that she was found pretty quickly, once they'd given up looking in the wrong place. Friends gave the alert at 5pm Wednesday, the air and ground search started dawn Thursday, and the woman and her son's body were found about 11 a.m. If she hadn't stayed with her vehicle, she probably wouldn't have been found so easily.
_________________________
Quality is addictive.

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#179431 - 08/15/09 01:02 PM Re: Death in Death Valley - Jeep Stranded on Camp [Re: Brangdon]
samhain Offline
Addict

Registered: 11/30/05
Posts: 598
Loc: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Originally Posted By: Brangdon
The opposite sometimes happens. Someone who is very competent and confident in one domain, assumes that competence carries over into another domain and comes a cropper when it doesn't. So I wouldn't suppose that her coming a cropper here means she is bad at her job.

And it sometimes happens that medical staff are brilliant at working with strangers, but go to pieces when the patient is a friend of theirs, eg another nurse. It can help to have a certain amount of detachment, and to consider problems dispassionately. That may have been a factor too: she may have been less good at her own survival than other people's.



Well said Brandon.

And very true.
_________________________
peace,
samhain autumnwood

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