This may have been asked and I missed it, so apologies in advance. Would signs of heatstroke be found in an autopsy? Or would signs be seen when they were found? Would you try to undress if affected by the heat? Would a dog instinctively find shade and try cool himself? How long would you need to be in the sun for heatstroke to affect three people and a dog in such a short time frame?
These are some good questions that help gather information, thank you. I’ve looked around and found this quite informative article on heatstroke.
pathophysiology of heat-related illness and death :: www.forensicmed.co.uk
Further down it mentions the post mortem stage. I’m no expert obviously, but it seems to say that it’s hard to establish and that it’s usually settled on once all other possibilities are eliminated and the conditions to assume heat stroke are present. Nonetheless, there are some clues like brain and liver damage. I’m not sure on autopsy processes but I should imagine there might be biopsies done for things like this that would also need to be sent away for testing. It could be the initial autopsy was to eliminate more obvious causes (injury, trauma, and so on). As far as I can make out, bar observations of fatigue, collapse, coma, there is no outward sign on bodies.
But yes, you would assume they may undress but they are experienced hikers so they must know the right protocol is to cool the body down. This makes me wonder again if heat is the answer or if something else was going on. If it was heatstroke (say the baby), the right thing to do would be to stay by the river and try cool her down in the water. Or any of them. I know it’s supposed to have the bacteria but I’m not sure if this is in pockets and they could have found parts of the river to at least cool down.
Again, it’s a steep and difficult climb but it’s hard to imagine heatstroke affecting one of them or the baby suddenly coming on say at the start of the climb (and they were still closer to the river) and then suddenly incapacitating one of them about half way up. It’s a tricky climb, a very hot day, but I doubt it would have happened so quickly. So again I’m led back to the other poster’s scenario that perhaps the father got a muscle pull or strain, waited for Ellen to go get help and for some reason she collapsed on the mountain and he then went to look for her with the heat and stress felling him too. Even that doesn’t seem very plausible I know given how fit and experienced they were but it’s still a little more plausible than heatstroke suddenly collapsing the dad in a relatively very short space of time while he began the climb.
The dog, yes, I think it depends on each dog so it’s hard to say but if it could’ve moved and had the inclination to, it could certainly have got back down to the river to drink or cool off and relatively quickly. This assumes the dog was able to though and also depends on the dog in question and other variables so I think it’s hard to say one way or the other.
