Greece American tourist a retired cop, 59, not returned from a solo hike, Amorgos Island, 11 June 24
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Aluev
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Accidents do happen and we must accept that even when we take all precautions, even if we are healthy and fit, even if we have the latest technology to assist us, sometimes it is beyond our control. The same goes for search and rescue efforts. Sometimes, we will never know what happened, no matter how extensive the search is.
I lost my uncle at sea. He was an avid swimmer and didn't realize that being in your 60s is not the same as being in your 20s. He was on holiday, swimming on a popular beach with my aunt on an Aegean island. One moment later and he was gone, my aunt lost sight of him. Searches were carried out to no avail. His body was found several days later washed ashore a rocky island many miles away. We were lucky that his body was found. At least we knew what happened to him.
I can imagine the pain and helplessness that Albert's family feels right now but the most likely scenario is that Albert had an accident and there was no way to save him in time.
I lost my uncle at sea. He was an avid swimmer and didn't realize that being in your 60s is not the same as being in your 20s. He was on holiday, swimming on a popular beach with my aunt on an Aegean island. One moment later and he was gone, my aunt lost sight of him. Searches were carried out to no avail. His body was found several days later washed ashore a rocky island many miles away. We were lucky that his body was found. At least we knew what happened to him.
I can imagine the pain and helplessness that Albert's family feels right now but the most likely scenario is that Albert had an accident and there was no way to save him in time.
kittythehare
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I think so, yes.
GTB72
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Which would suggest he has succumbed at the end of an almost five hour hike. That would be desperately said if true.
I would also have thought he might have been able to make it to Chora if he realized he was in trouble.
GTB72
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If he were spotted by the shepherd between 12 and 12.30, he is clearly far beyond Chora?
GTB72
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It's a five hour hike from Aegaili to Katapola. If he indeed started at the back of 7am he would be approaching Katapola at roughly 12.30pm. I would suggest EAC, sadly, will be found quite close to his ultimate destination.
IMO
It's so hard to say, these cases can be so mysterious.
I was just remembering a case in a US desert park, a similarly age man, similarly experienced and prepared, hiking on a hot day in June, never made it back to his car. Beyond the many days of SAR searching, a few private, experienced individuals took on the challenge of finding his remains, and logged many - probably hundreds - of hours walking the park based on various theories of what might have happened. Twelve years after going missing, his remains were found, completely by accident, in an area no one had searched (and yet there was an alleged phone ping around that area, that had been dismissed as impossible because it was several miles in the wrong direction).
CA - CA - Bill Ewasko, 66, Joshua Tree National Park, June 2010
In June 2010, Bill Ewasko traveled alone from his home in suburban Atlanta to Joshua Tree National Park, where he planned to hike for several days. Ewasko, 66, was an avid jogger, a Vietnam vet and a longtime fan of the desert West. A family photo of Ewasko standing at the summit of Mount...
www.websleuths.com
ETA - apparently, maps were found with his remains, and there was cell coverage in many areas he'd probably passed through.
So, it's really hard to say, except that, since they haven't found Albert yet - and there doesn't appear to have been any pings at all - he went somewhere that doesn't make sense to searchers, but made sense to him.
JMO
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GTB72
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That is desperately sad. Twelve years. You are quite correct though, I am only surmising. As you say, perhaps he went somewhere relevant to himself and not to searchers. I think what is more likely is he, almost 5 hours into the walk, has succumbed to heatstroke.It's so hard to say, these cases can be so mysterious.
I was just remembering a case in a US desert park, a similarly age man, similarly experienced and prepared, hiking on a hot day in June, never made it back to his car. Beyond the many days of SAR searching, a few private, experienced individuals took on the challenge of finding his remains, and logged many - probably hundreds - of hours walking the park based on various theories of what might have happened. Twelve years after going missing, his remains were found, completely by accident, in an area no one had searched (and yet there was an alleged phone ping around that area, that had been dismissed as impossible because it was several miles in the wrong direction).
CA - CA - Bill Ewasko, 66, Joshua Tree National Park, June 2010
In June 2010, Bill Ewasko traveled alone from his home in suburban Atlanta to Joshua Tree National Park, where he planned to hike for several days. Ewasko, 66, was an avid jogger, a Vietnam vet and a longtime fan of the desert West. A family photo of Ewasko standing at the summit of Mount...
ETA - apparently, maps were found with his remains, and there was cell coverage in many areas he'd probably passed through.
So, it's really hard to say, except that, since they haven't found Albert yet - and there doesn't appear to have been any pings at all - he went somewhere that doesn't make sense to searchers, but made sense to him.
JMO
Ακυρώθηκαν οι έρευνες για τον αναπληρωτή συνταξιούχου σερίφη που χάθηκε ενώ έκανε πεζοπορία σε ελληνικό νησί
Οι πιο πρόσφατοι τίτλοι από τους δημοσιογράφους μας σε όλες τις ΗΠΑ παραδίδονται απευθείας στα...
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RickshawFan
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IMO there’s nothing nefarious going on. This happens all the time in the US, too, as well as universally. People go missing off the beaten track and are never found. Heck, Ötzi was found, what, 5,000 years later? People get buried under rubble and snow, crawl into caves, crawl under rocks, fall into tree wells, fall off canyon walls into inaccessible places, etc.
A Greek holiday can sound so low risk, but from experience, I can tell you, the landscape is inhospitable in summer and not at all conducive to a missing person being found, just because of all the rocks and unpredictability about where they could have gone. Pieces of ancient construction add to the rockiness of the landscape. And you’re putting SAR at risk if you have them searching in that sun.
A good comparator to this case would be Paul Miller in Joshua Tree. He was found out in the open, months after he went missing, via serendipitous review of thousands of drone images. Come to think of it, he may have been wearing pretty much the same outfit as this case in Amorgos. His remains looked like a shadow in the photo.
RickshawFan
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IMO the effects of sunstroke can seem to overtake a person suddenly. I’m thinking of the fellow who went for a trail run in the Bay Area in high temperatures. You’d think he could make it back to the car if he felt too hot, but no. Same with the couple and baby near Yosemite. They died not very far from their car.
RickshawFan
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AFAIK the Greek government does have a standard protocol. Often foreign governments are blamed for being disorganized or not caring enough when American tourists go missing. In the past year: Japan, Guatemala, Greece, Alaska. Though there is a protocol (in the US, too), people don’t like the protocol if their loved one isn’t found.Ακυρώθηκαν οι έρευνες για τον αναπληρωτή συνταξιούχου σερίφη που χάθηκε ενώ έκανε πεζοπορία σε ελληνικό νησί
Οι πιο πρόσφατοι τίτλοι από τους δημοσιογράφους μας σε όλες τις ΗΠΑ παραδίδονται απευθείας στα...
Local government resources (e.g. SAR and LE) even got blamed in a charity walk situation just a couple of weeks ago near San Diego, when a Vietnamese woman went missing, also in high heat. They were blamed for following their protocol, even by the same uninvited community members interfering in the search area and thwarting standard search techniques, such as heat-seeking drones. The word was they were disorganized, lacked familiarity with the search area, were inappropriately dressed, and were inappropriately turning down untrained volunteers: none of this would be true for SAR in the US. They are highly trained and very familiar with terrain. They have to carry backpacks with enough resources for themselves as well as the missing person. In the San Diego case, that would have meant gallons of water, and SAR packs would be very heavy and bulky. Typical.
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This is a relevant article recently published in the online English version of Kathimerini: Greek trails: Taking the wrong step in stifling conditions | eKathimerini.com
How does the mayor know they went off the official hiking trail?
Marie-Pierre's friends say that on the Wednesday of the disappearance it was cooler and that Marie-Pierre had carefully prepared her excursion.
in À Cogolin, inquiétude et questions après la disparition en Grèce de Marie-Pierre Arfel - France Bleu
RickshawFan
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It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the women went off trail. There are thousands of years of pathways made by goats, donkeys, and humans on these islands. Runoff makes others. Abandoned habitations yet more. The odds of going off trail and not realizing are substantial. Who knows what methods any of these missing hikers had for actually staying on track? And if your brain isn’t working correctly—for sure it isn’t in these conditions—the odds of going off trail would be, I’d guess, about 99%. So, the mayor is speaking to her truth.
Add to that, no one seems to be carrying enough water in these cases we’re seeing (“enough water” would likely have forced them to abandon the idea of a “hike”, since it was too heavy to be logistically viable)… IMO there was no way to “carefully prepare” for this particular excursion, except to wait for fall. Note: the French woman quoted is referring to the missing hiker’s usual preparation habit, nothing specific to this event. Here, unfortunately, specificity is everything.
IMO alot of folks go hiking with the idea that it’s more or less a long walk in a park. It might be steeper in places, have less traffic and more exotic sights, but yes, just a more complex walk outing. It’s not. You are a guest of nature: it can be welcoming and indulgent, but often pitiless. And you don’t have any entitlement to stay alive.
This last is important, since folks who complain about SAR and what they perceive as lack of response from local authorities for themselves or loved ones, as I observe it, almost always come from a space where they believe a person is entitled to be alive when nature has likely claimed them.
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