"Did you know that 12 years before the Kim tragedy a man died in the same area after getting stuck? He died of starvation. Also, in the very same year as the Kim tragedy a motor home with a family of six was stranded in snow in that area."

The Stivers family in the motorhome was loaded with supplies. The inlaws were also wanted on felony warrants, which made me wonder if that was an issue in this situation. Once they decided to rescue themselves, they did fine.

The guy that died of starvation, DeWitt Finley, IMO, was the closest thing to suicide that could still be attributed to accidental death or death by misadventure. This case is one that really made me grind my teeth with frustration. This guy got his truck/camper stuck in deep snow, and just sat there. He never made any attempt to try to walk out (18 mi one way, 22 mi the other). Had he even bothered to get out and walk a short distance, he would have discovered that he was stuck in the deepest snow in the area -- he could have hiked out. But no, he sat there and wrote letters to his wife and wrote, "I have no control over my life its all in His Hands. 'His will be done.' Death here in another month or so, or He sends someone to save me".

God also gave him a brain, two hands and two feet, and he failed to use any of them. He had had no food or water with him, and had forgotten to fill the propane tank.

But there were a couple of problems with his waiting to be saved: he had changed his route from the one planned so no one knew where to look; and the forest rangers (two of them) had locked the gates at both ends (one at each end), and lazily hadn't bothered to actually lock one gate and drive the length of the road to the other end to make sure no one was there before they locked the other one.

He got stuck in mid-November, died sometime in mid-January, and his body was found in mid-May. Ironically, when the boys found him in May, his wallet had disappeared, so someone must have found him sooner and 'forgot' to mention it to anyone.

Sue