Boy, 11, dies after being stranded five days

[AmandaBrown23]

But the boy reportedly did make it for five days, and his mother lives to tell.

not to mention the dog lived.

 

[Kat]

More details are emerging:

Las Vegas boy dies after getting stranded in Death Valley
[August 10, 2009]
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2009/08/10/4316360.htm

...Many questions remain unanswered about the decisions the woman made, including what role a GPS device played in guiding her. Instead of turning around and returning home after getting a flat tire, she continued on the trail...

...Baldino said her only directional device was a GPS. She did not have a map or a compass...

A lot of details about the route she took in the article above and also an outline of the two other people that died in the park this year.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This article doesn't talk about Carlos' death but does show what is needed when camping in extreme environments. I thought I'd post it, I'm bookmarking it myself for our own family.
http://www.examiner.com/x-12879-LA-...lley-teaches-lesson-of-survival--preparedness

I still don't see the autopsy report for Carlos though.

 

[SuziQ]

Below is another case from a year ago in Utah. The Sheriff states that in his area rescues have doubled or tripled and far too many of them are caused by people who think a GPS or cell phone are all they need. In the below case it didn't take long for the kids to start getting sick.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3923674&autostart=y


It was quite an ordeal in the Southern Utah wilderness for a convoy of almost two dozen tourists from California. Sheriff's deputies rescued 23 men, women and children after a frightening experience. They were lost and stranded in a rugged area of Kane County.
The group was saved from disaster because it wound up in a place where cell phones actually worked. That's a rarity in that part of Utah. What got the group in trouble, according to the sheriff, was a foolish reliance on another electronic device, a GPS unit.

More and video at the link

 

[hoppyfrog]

From http://www.texaschildrens.org/Parents/TipsArticles/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=1307

The elderly, the very young and those who are sick or without access to air conditioning are most severely affected by heat.

and

Children absorb more heat from their environment because they have greater skin surface-area to body-mass (weight) ratio than adults – the smaller the child, the faster the heat is absorbed.

I think this goes a long way towards explaining why the boy died but the mom did not.

BTW, there's lots of good information at the link about heat exhaustion--its symptoms and treatment--and about dehydration.

hth,

Hoppy

 

[Jesikah1]

This is tragic. After reading the articles I think that this is a case of a horrible accident exacerbated by poor / misinformed choices. Hopefully the one good thing that will come of this is that people will become educated about the heat and realize that these types of deaths can and do occur.

 

[OneLostGrl]

ohh how awful!