A few years ago a student was left behind in a cave for 60 hours because people can’t count
That situation was already mentioned upthread; I think post 16.
Sorry about that.
Closest I’ve been to this was a SCUBA trip with the Boy Scouts (at their SeaBase camp in the Florida Keys). We were split into groups with a SeaBase leader in charge of each group (of four, I think… our guide was a teenage girl). We motored out a few miles and went under, and were quietly exploring reefs and watching fish…
… suddenly two of us got caught in a Rip Current. It was like a really fast tunnel of rushing water, and pretty quickly we were out of sight, swooping left and right, up and down over coral reefs. I just relaxed and enjoyed it… hey, it felt like flying!
We came up quite a ways from the boat and, as we swam towards it, blew on our official Scout whistles. No harm done…
…except for the tribunal when we got back to shore, where the director of the camp yelled at us for swimming away without telling our guide (“But we were waving at her as we were snatched away from her…”). He said we were confined to camp the next day and that our SCUBA record would have a black mark.
(Ooh, not on our Permanent Records, oh no…)
I’ve always thought I could make a stink about how THEY let us get taken by a riptide without even noticing, but I’m still so happy to have had that wild ride.
It is my turn to buy pizza for next week’s staff meeting, and I am putting pineapple on every one. That is how mad I would be.
At least not anchovies.
Moderating:
This is kinda hostile.
He never claimed he was in danger. The conversation was broad enough to include other examples of groups losing members. You didn’t need to pick this fight.
Please play nice.
Yeah, I guess you are right.
I’d love to hear more about how it was decided to let one guy go off on his own, and the others descended - removing the bread crumbs as they went.
I wish I hadn’t. That’s nightmare shit there.
The rest of the group at a minimum should have reported him missing sooner - but I wonder if it was a matter of letting him go off on his own or if he is one of those people who are going to get to the top no matter what, even if everyone else turns back.
I learned my lesson watching something long ago before I learned there are things I need to avoid. I avoid a lot of stuff now. I need to protect my fragile brain from getting worse.
I feel your pain. Out in the woods with two other riders, heading at a careful walk down a steep trail to cross a small rocky stream with a steep slope up on the other side. Dipshit in the lead (who always rode with spurs despite being a crappy rider who was always complaining about her horse misbehaving) – yup, you guessed it, bolted up the far side, leaving my TB just beginning to navigate the tricky stream footing.
Epona bless my Ben, who listened when I asked him not to charge after her and carefully picked his way through the rill and stayed calm all the way to the top, where I yelled at the dipshit. “Oh, I couldn’t control her.” (Bullshit; she wanted to gallop up.) “Then don’t take the lead!” Refused to ride with her again.
Any group, whether riding, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, whatever, must ALWAYS suit the pace to the weakest/slowest member, and keep track of them.
Yeah, the kid had hid in a “hollow tree” that when i looked at it afterwards, I would have thought it would be a right squeeze for a fat racoon. And searchers walked right past it several times. Kid just hid, until Mom came yelling.
I humbly apologize to both posters. It was not meant to be hostile.
Having been a volunteer ranger, I guess I overreacted.
There is a fairly infamous example of a young Marine being mistakenly left behind after completing a desert training exercise. He was, IIRC, left to direct others towards the trucks taking them out of the exercise area and got left behind in limited visibility conditions because unit leaders did a poor job of keeping track of who got on which truck (and who got missed):
The the unit cleared out before sunrise, and then when the sun came up the Marine realized he had been left behind. He tried to hike his way out, but was dead from hyperthermia before anyone even noticed he was missing. With no supplies and not much (if any) water, he didn’t quite make it to the nearest road where he might have at least been picked up by a passerby.
Back when I was with my ex-wife, for a while she worked as a tour guide. Once, they picked up a large group in several buses to take them to the airport.
At a rest stop, the people were going back and forth between the buses. She tried to do a headcount, but because of this movement, she counted incorrectly, mistakenly believing that they had everyone, so she gave the OK to leave.
This was BC (before cell phones) so when the guy discovered he was left behind he didn’t have a good way to contact his coworkers in the group.
Fortunately, the guy asked around and found another bus going to the airport, and managed to show up about the same time my ex-wife was getting into a panic.
In another article I read it says the summit group did complete the summit, but that he didn’t until 11:30am.
Some time later he texted with the group and figured out he was off the trail. They told him to head back up. Then at 3:50pm he texted that he found the trail. It wasn’t until 9pm that they alerted the authorities. Obviously in hindsight they should have done something earlier.
Maybe he wasn’t keeping up and they mutually agreed to split up. But if he wasn’t keeping up, then that hike was too much for him to solo. Splitting up is the critical mistake. After that all of the other mistakes were pretty much preordained.
The article I saw said that as he was descending, the weather deteriorated and he kept falling.
Not when I was there. I coulda used the cafe. And maybe the ift shop.
That NBC article is very light on details, but I’ve heard the CO monsoon is strong this year. You really want to be out of the mountains by 1 pm at the latest–hypothermia and lightning strikes are no fun (plus mudslides, engorged stream crossings, etc.). Plus, anymore SOMEONE in a backcountry group should have a satellite communicator (SPOT, InReach, etc.).