Absolutely no excuse
Records: New Jersey Man May Have Needlessly Died of Thirst on Wilderness Survival Trip
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
AP
BOULDER, Utah -
A man died of thirst during a wilderness-survival exercise designed to test his physical and mental toughness, even though guides had water. They didn't offer him any because they did not want to spoil the character-building experience.
By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.
After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water.
But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various walks of life were being led by expert guides on a wilderness-survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness.
And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water on that torrid summer day.
Buschow wasn't told that, and he wasn't offered any. The guides did not want him to fail the $3,175 course. They wanted him to dig deep, push himself beyond his known limits, and make it to the cave on his own.
Nearly a year later, documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act reveal those and other previously undisclosed details of what turned out to be a death march for Buschow. They also raise questions about the judgments and priorities of the guides at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. What matters more: the customer's welfare or his quest?
"It was so needless. What a shame. It didn't have to happen," said Ray Gardner, the Garfield County sheriff's deputy who hiked six miles to recover Buschow's body. "They had emergency water right there. I would have given him a drink."
Family members are angry.
"Down in those canyons it's like a furnace," said Rob Buschow of Glen Spey, N.Y. "I don't have my brother anymore because no one would give him water."
While regretting the tragedy, the school, known as BOSS, has denied any negligence and instead blamed Buschow, saying the security officer and former Air Force airman did not read course materials, may have withheld health information and may have eaten too heavily before leaving River Vale, N.J., for the grueling course.
Noting Buschow signed liability waivers, the school said: "Mr. Buschow expressly assumed the risk of serious injury or death prior to participating."
Garfield County authorities declined to file charges, saying there was insufficient evidence the school acted with criminal negligence. The prosecutor said participants knew they were taking a risk.
The U.S. Forest Service, however, has stopped BOSS from using Dixie National Forest for a portion of the 28-day course this summer until it gets outside advice on providing food and water. The agency said it was the first death of a participant in a BOSS survival exercise.
The Colorado-based school dates to the late 1960s. In 1994, BOSS alumnus Josh Bernstein, a New Yorker with an Ivy League education, took over marketing and administration and later became owner. He also is host of the History Channel's "Digging for the Truth," a show that takes viewers on archaeological adventures around the world.
BOSS emphasizes personal growth through adversity, and using your wits to survive. The mantra: "Know more, carry less."
BOSS has wilderness courses lasting just a few days to a month. During the 28-day survival course, held 250 miles from Salt Lake City, campers are required to hike for miles and drink what they can find from natural sources.
Tent, matches, compass, sleeping bag, portable stove, watch - all have no role. Campers are equipped with a knife, water cup, blanket and poncho and are told they could lose 20 pounds or more. Among the things they learn is how to catch fish with their hands and how to kill a sheep with a knife.
The course is intended to push people "past those false limits your mind has set for your body."
"Somewhere along the many miles of sagebrush flats, red rock canyons, and mesa tops of Southern Utah - somewhere between the thirst, the hunger and the sweat - you'll discover the real destination: yourself," BOSS says on its Web site.
Buschow had marched the arctic tundra in Greenland. And after leaving the Air Force, he worked security at U.S. bases outside the country. He recalled his days as a Boy Scout in his May 2006 application to BOSS.
"Although in the yrs since, I have continued to appreciate Mother Nature," he wrote by hand, "I still haven't ever truly immersed myself in her embrace. I fear that I'm becoming a 'comfort camper,' having never come close to looking her in the eyes."
Buschow described himself as 5-foot-7 and about 180 pounds, with a resting pulse of 66. A New York doctor checked a box declaring him fit for a survival program. Buschow signed the application, acknowledging that BOSS was not offering a "risk-free wilderness experience."
The documents obtained by the AP disclose the brief but bitter wilderness adventure of Buschow:
On July 16, he gathered here with the 11 others, including some from England and a college student who had bicycled from Maine. Most were in their 20s and 30s. They ran 1 1/2 miles so the staff could assess their conditioning.
Buschow "was not the most in-shape but not the most out of shape," recalled camper Charlie DeTar, 25, the cross-country bicyclist.
On the second day, after a cool night, the group set out around sunrise and stopped about 8:30 a.m. to dip their cups into Deer Creek in what turned out to be the only water until evening. Buschow pulled a bottle from his pack - but was warned by the staff not to fill it.
During the early phase of the expedition, participants can drink water at the source only and cannot carry it with them.
The group, led by three guides, formed a loose chain, with stronger hikers ahead of people struggling at the 6,000-foot elevation, or more than a mile above sea level.
"We didn't cover all that much distance, maybe five to six miles. We were moving slowly, a lot of up and down," DeTar said in an interview from Vermont. "You don't have food, you don't have water, so you have to move at the slowest pace of the group."
They rested periodically under pinons and junipers, all the while looking for signs of water, such as green vegetation in canyon bottoms. At least two attempts to dig for water failed.
Not everyone had close contact with Buschow, but a consensus emerges from the campers' written accounts obtained by the AP: While cheerful, encouraging and coherent at times, he was a man in deep trouble hours before he collapsed.
"We were all desperate for water," a camper wrote. "Every time (Buschow) would fall or lie down, it took a huge amount of effort to pick him back up. His speech was thick and his mouth swollen."
"Every time he continued, he'd rush ahead, often in the wrong direction and so exhausting himself even more," the camper wrote.
The sun was described as blazing, inescapable. "There were no clouds," a camper wrote.
Some people vomited that day, including a man who got sick three times - a typical misery on the rigorous course, according to BOSS. Buschow was suffering from leg cramps about 2:30 p.m. and said he was feeling "bad."
During a break, he mistook a tree for a person and said, "There she is."
"This was the first point at which I became concerned knowing that delirium happens when dehydration becomes severe," a camper wrote. Buschow "also asked if there was much air traffic that went through here, and asked if anyone had a signal mirror."
(The Forest Service, citing privacy concerns, deleted certain names from documents.)
By 7 p.m., as the sun descended and temperatures cooled a bit, the group approached a cave in Cottonwood Canyon, known to BOSS guides as a reliable source of water.
Buschow's companions were carrying his possessions for him. Within earshot of people exhilarated about the pool of water, he collapsed for the last time.
"He said he could not go on," staff member Shawn O'Neal wrote two days later in a statement ordered by the Garfield County Sheriff's Office. "I felt that he could make it this short distance and told him he could do it as I have seen many students sore, dehydrated and saying 'can't' do something only to find that they have strength beyond their conceived limits."
O'Neal didn't inform Buschow about his emergency water.
"I wanted him to accomplish getting to the water and the cave for rest," he wrote. "He asked me to go get the water for him. I said I was not going to leave him. ... Shortly thereafter I had a bad feeling and turned to Dave and found no sign of breathing."
A staff apprentice climbed to the top of a dead juniper to get reception for a cellular call to the Boulder office.
Five people took turns trying to revive Buschow while red biting ants crawled over his face. A rescue helicopter from Page, Ariz., arrived about 90 minutes after he passed out, but a defibrillator failed to jump-start his heart. Campers gathered in a circle for the news: "Dave is dead."
They had a moment of silence and ate almonds, sesame sticks and energy bars distributed by staff, the first food since sandwiches more than 24 hours earlier.
Buschow's death was caused by dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, according to Dr. Edward Leis, Utah's deputy chief medical examiner, who found no evidence of drugs or other factors.
DeTar, a camper who performed CPR, said no one was told that BOSS guides carried emergency water, but "I heard it slosh" in a pack.
Should it have been offered to Buschow? And if it's for an emergency, what triggers it?
"Hard to say," said DeTar, who has a master's degree from Dartmouth College and is trained in wilderness first aid. "One thing that BOSS offers you is an opportunity to push yourself physically into the red zone. ... He was 200 feet from the water. Is that the point where you give it to him? Or 500 feet?"
Bernstein, the school's owner, agreed to answer questions only by e-mail. He said BOSS instructors can give water based on their assessment of a camper's needs.
"The group appeared to be within the normal parameters we've seen on the trail over the years," Bernstein said. "Many were, understandably, tired, but morale was high and the participants were determined to continue. ... He seemed capable of completing the hike to camp that evening."
In a Feb. 27 letter to the Forest Service, Bernstein said Buschow may not have trained properly, pointing to comments he made to another camper about drinking a gallon of water a day and eating cheesesteaks to bulk up before the expedition.
His brother, Rob Buschow, said: "It's sickening when they blame the victim."
After Buschow's death, five people left the course. The six campers who completed the exercise returned to the site to leave a bouquet of foliage and a marker of stones.
"I didn't want to have the fear of the desert instilled in me because of this incident," DeTar said.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
AP
BOULDER, Utah -
A man died of thirst during a wilderness-survival exercise designed to test his physical and mental toughness, even though guides had water. They didn't offer him any because they did not want to spoil the character-building experience.
By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.
After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water.
But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various walks of life were being led by expert guides on a wilderness-survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness.
And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water on that torrid summer day.
Buschow wasn't told that, and he wasn't offered any. The guides did not want him to fail the $3,175 course. They wanted him to dig deep, push himself beyond his known limits, and make it to the cave on his own.
Nearly a year later, documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act reveal those and other previously undisclosed details of what turned out to be a death march for Buschow. They also raise questions about the judgments and priorities of the guides at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. What matters more: the customer's welfare or his quest?
"It was so needless. What a shame. It didn't have to happen," said Ray Gardner, the Garfield County sheriff's deputy who hiked six miles to recover Buschow's body. "They had emergency water right there. I would have given him a drink."
Family members are angry.
"Down in those canyons it's like a furnace," said Rob Buschow of Glen Spey, N.Y. "I don't have my brother anymore because no one would give him water."
While regretting the tragedy, the school, known as BOSS, has denied any negligence and instead blamed Buschow, saying the security officer and former Air Force airman did not read course materials, may have withheld health information and may have eaten too heavily before leaving River Vale, N.J., for the grueling course.
Noting Buschow signed liability waivers, the school said: "Mr. Buschow expressly assumed the risk of serious injury or death prior to participating."
Garfield County authorities declined to file charges, saying there was insufficient evidence the school acted with criminal negligence. The prosecutor said participants knew they were taking a risk.
The U.S. Forest Service, however, has stopped BOSS from using Dixie National Forest for a portion of the 28-day course this summer until it gets outside advice on providing food and water. The agency said it was the first death of a participant in a BOSS survival exercise.
The Colorado-based school dates to the late 1960s. In 1994, BOSS alumnus Josh Bernstein, a New Yorker with an Ivy League education, took over marketing and administration and later became owner. He also is host of the History Channel's "Digging for the Truth," a show that takes viewers on archaeological adventures around the world.
BOSS emphasizes personal growth through adversity, and using your wits to survive. The mantra: "Know more, carry less."
BOSS has wilderness courses lasting just a few days to a month. During the 28-day survival course, held 250 miles from Salt Lake City, campers are required to hike for miles and drink what they can find from natural sources.
Tent, matches, compass, sleeping bag, portable stove, watch - all have no role. Campers are equipped with a knife, water cup, blanket and poncho and are told they could lose 20 pounds or more. Among the things they learn is how to catch fish with their hands and how to kill a sheep with a knife.
The course is intended to push people "past those false limits your mind has set for your body."
"Somewhere along the many miles of sagebrush flats, red rock canyons, and mesa tops of Southern Utah - somewhere between the thirst, the hunger and the sweat - you'll discover the real destination: yourself," BOSS says on its Web site.
Buschow had marched the arctic tundra in Greenland. And after leaving the Air Force, he worked security at U.S. bases outside the country. He recalled his days as a Boy Scout in his May 2006 application to BOSS.
"Although in the yrs since, I have continued to appreciate Mother Nature," he wrote by hand, "I still haven't ever truly immersed myself in her embrace. I fear that I'm becoming a 'comfort camper,' having never come close to looking her in the eyes."
Buschow described himself as 5-foot-7 and about 180 pounds, with a resting pulse of 66. A New York doctor checked a box declaring him fit for a survival program. Buschow signed the application, acknowledging that BOSS was not offering a "risk-free wilderness experience."
The documents obtained by the AP disclose the brief but bitter wilderness adventure of Buschow:
On July 16, he gathered here with the 11 others, including some from England and a college student who had bicycled from Maine. Most were in their 20s and 30s. They ran 1 1/2 miles so the staff could assess their conditioning.
Buschow "was not the most in-shape but not the most out of shape," recalled camper Charlie DeTar, 25, the cross-country bicyclist.
On the second day, after a cool night, the group set out around sunrise and stopped about 8:30 a.m. to dip their cups into Deer Creek in what turned out to be the only water until evening. Buschow pulled a bottle from his pack - but was warned by the staff not to fill it.
During the early phase of the expedition, participants can drink water at the source only and cannot carry it with them.
The group, led by three guides, formed a loose chain, with stronger hikers ahead of people struggling at the 6,000-foot elevation, or more than a mile above sea level.
"We didn't cover all that much distance, maybe five to six miles. We were moving slowly, a lot of up and down," DeTar said in an interview from Vermont. "You don't have food, you don't have water, so you have to move at the slowest pace of the group."
They rested periodically under pinons and junipers, all the while looking for signs of water, such as green vegetation in canyon bottoms. At least two attempts to dig for water failed.
Not everyone had close contact with Buschow, but a consensus emerges from the campers' written accounts obtained by the AP: While cheerful, encouraging and coherent at times, he was a man in deep trouble hours before he collapsed.
"We were all desperate for water," a camper wrote. "Every time (Buschow) would fall or lie down, it took a huge amount of effort to pick him back up. His speech was thick and his mouth swollen."
"Every time he continued, he'd rush ahead, often in the wrong direction and so exhausting himself even more," the camper wrote.
The sun was described as blazing, inescapable. "There were no clouds," a camper wrote.
Some people vomited that day, including a man who got sick three times - a typical misery on the rigorous course, according to BOSS. Buschow was suffering from leg cramps about 2:30 p.m. and said he was feeling "bad."
During a break, he mistook a tree for a person and said, "There she is."
"This was the first point at which I became concerned knowing that delirium happens when dehydration becomes severe," a camper wrote. Buschow "also asked if there was much air traffic that went through here, and asked if anyone had a signal mirror."
(The Forest Service, citing privacy concerns, deleted certain names from documents.)
By 7 p.m., as the sun descended and temperatures cooled a bit, the group approached a cave in Cottonwood Canyon, known to BOSS guides as a reliable source of water.
Buschow's companions were carrying his possessions for him. Within earshot of people exhilarated about the pool of water, he collapsed for the last time.
"He said he could not go on," staff member Shawn O'Neal wrote two days later in a statement ordered by the Garfield County Sheriff's Office. "I felt that he could make it this short distance and told him he could do it as I have seen many students sore, dehydrated and saying 'can't' do something only to find that they have strength beyond their conceived limits."
O'Neal didn't inform Buschow about his emergency water.
"I wanted him to accomplish getting to the water and the cave for rest," he wrote. "He asked me to go get the water for him. I said I was not going to leave him. ... Shortly thereafter I had a bad feeling and turned to Dave and found no sign of breathing."
A staff apprentice climbed to the top of a dead juniper to get reception for a cellular call to the Boulder office.
Five people took turns trying to revive Buschow while red biting ants crawled over his face. A rescue helicopter from Page, Ariz., arrived about 90 minutes after he passed out, but a defibrillator failed to jump-start his heart. Campers gathered in a circle for the news: "Dave is dead."
They had a moment of silence and ate almonds, sesame sticks and energy bars distributed by staff, the first food since sandwiches more than 24 hours earlier.
Buschow's death was caused by dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, according to Dr. Edward Leis, Utah's deputy chief medical examiner, who found no evidence of drugs or other factors.
DeTar, a camper who performed CPR, said no one was told that BOSS guides carried emergency water, but "I heard it slosh" in a pack.
Should it have been offered to Buschow? And if it's for an emergency, what triggers it?
"Hard to say," said DeTar, who has a master's degree from Dartmouth College and is trained in wilderness first aid. "One thing that BOSS offers you is an opportunity to push yourself physically into the red zone. ... He was 200 feet from the water. Is that the point where you give it to him? Or 500 feet?"
Bernstein, the school's owner, agreed to answer questions only by e-mail. He said BOSS instructors can give water based on their assessment of a camper's needs.
"The group appeared to be within the normal parameters we've seen on the trail over the years," Bernstein said. "Many were, understandably, tired, but morale was high and the participants were determined to continue. ... He seemed capable of completing the hike to camp that evening."
In a Feb. 27 letter to the Forest Service, Bernstein said Buschow may not have trained properly, pointing to comments he made to another camper about drinking a gallon of water a day and eating cheesesteaks to bulk up before the expedition.
His brother, Rob Buschow, said: "It's sickening when they blame the victim."
After Buschow's death, five people left the course. The six campers who completed the exercise returned to the site to leave a bouquet of foliage and a marker of stones.
"I didn't want to have the fear of the desert instilled in me because of this incident," DeTar said.
0
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I hear the sound of lawyers salivating...
What the hell is the matter with these people?0 -
quote:Originally posted by mateomasfeo
I hear the sound of lawyers salivating...
What the hell is the matter with these people?
STOP DROOLING ALL OVER THE FORUM [:D][:D][:D]
They were not fully aware of how dangerous dehydration really is.0 -
quote:Originally posted by bpost1958
quote:Originally posted by mateomasfeo
I hear the sound of lawyers salivating...
What the hell is the matter with these people?
STOP DROOLING ALL OVER THE FORUM [:D][:D][:D]
They were not fully aware of how dangerous dehydration really is.
Now they will remember it for the rest of their lives.0 -
quote:Originally posted by mateomasfeo
quote:Originally posted by bpost1958
quote:Originally posted by mateomasfeo
I hear the sound of lawyers salivating...
What the hell is the matter with these people?
STOP DROOLING ALL OVER THE FORUM [:D][:D][:D]
They were not fully aware of how dangerous dehydration really is.
Now they will remember it for the rest of their lives.
I think they did. Don0 -
quote:They didn't offer him any because they did not want to spoil the character-building experience.
Looks like Murder 1 to me.
See how well they survive in prison - should be "a character-building experience."[:D]0 -
That guy was clearly weak! Any of the dozens of Gun Broker SHTF scenaro we've been treated to over the years, be they an escape from a Muslim invasion, fleeing the economic disasters brought on by NAFTA or just your run of the mill zombie attack, would have proved that that fellow would not have measured up to GB standards. I'll bet he was not even packing a rifle (or three), a six month supply of ammo or ten pounds of gold coins! Mexicans illegally crossing the border in the Arizona desert can last over ten hours in 100 degree heat and still arrive fresh enough in Phoenix to wash dishes that same evening, but this fellow could not so who can blame the guides for not offering him water, they have to weed out the weakest so that the strongest can survive. When the North Koreans invade and we are all holed up out in the Utah desert and badly in need of supplies from our GB base camp, we need to send out someone who can make the trek and come back with those inspirational boxes of bibles and statues of G. W. Bush...Not that charactor! That is the problems with Americans these days; We've gone soft and it just figures that this guy would be from some socialist state like NJ! 0 -
quote:they have to weed out the weakest
Yep, sure 'weeded out' that one, alright!
[:o)]0 -
quote:Originally posted by kristov
That guy was clearly weak! Any of the dozens of Gun Broker SHTF scenaro we've been treated to over the years, be they an escape from a Muslim invasion, fleeing the economic disasters brought on by NAFTA or just your run of the mill zombie attack, would have proved that that fellow would not have measured up to GB standards. I'll bet he was not even packing a rifle (or three), a six month supply of ammo or ten pounds of gold coins! Mexicans illegally crossing the border in the Arizona desert can last over ten hours in 100 degree heat and still arrive fresh enough in Phoenix to wash dishes that same evening, but this fellow could not so who can blame the guides for not offering him water, they have to weed out the weakest so that the strongest can survive. When the North Koreans invade and we are all holed up out in the Utah desert and badly in need of supplies from our GB base camp, we need to send out someone who can make the trek and come back with those inspirational boxes of bibles and statues of G. W. Bush...Not that charactor! That is the problems with Americans these days; We've gone soft and it just figures that this guy would be from some socialist state like NJ!
Funniest thing I've read all night. Thanks.[:D][;)][:o)][:p][}:)][:)]0 -
Experts. Yeah. OK.
quote:Buschow's death was caused by dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, according to Dr. Edward Leis, Utah's deputy chief medical examiner, who found no evidence of drugs or other factors.
No. Buschow's death was caused by ignorance of experts.0 -
He signed the waivers. I'm sure there's a legal way around them, but I don't think there should be.
I'm just glad I'm not one of the "expert" guides who chose not to rehydrate the guy.
It's ugly.0 -
quote:Originally posted by spurgemastur
He signed the waivers. I'm sure there's a legal way around them, but I don't think there should be.
I'm just glad I'm not one of the "expert" guides who chose not to rehydrate the guy.
It's ugly.
no matter what waiver you sign, you never agree to your own death.0 -
spurgemastur,
A contract is null and void if criminal activity is involved. Murder for hire is a good example.
Any waiver he signed will go out the window if the authorities determine criminal negligence was involved. And it sure as heck seems like it was.0 -
Porly manage crock of sheet, the guides should be up for manslaughter. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by kristov
That guy was clearly weak! Any of the dozens of Gun Broker SHTF scenaro we've been treated to over the years, be they an escape from a Muslim invasion, fleeing the economic disasters brought on by NAFTA or just your run of the mill zombie attack, would have proved that that fellow would not have measured up to GB standards. I'll bet he was not even packing a rifle (or three), a six month supply of ammo or ten pounds of gold coins! Mexicans illegally crossing the border in the Arizona desert can last over ten hours in 100 degree heat and still arrive fresh enough in Phoenix to wash dishes that same evening, but this fellow could not so who can blame the guides for not offering him water, they have to weed out the weakest so that the strongest can survive. When the North Koreans invade and we are all holed up out in the Utah desert and badly in need of supplies from our GB base camp, we need to send out someone who can make the trek and come back with those inspirational boxes of bibles and statues of G. W. Bush...Not that charactor! That is the problems with Americans these days; We've gone soft and it just figures that this guy would be from some socialist state like NJ!
Chit... you must be poor. I carry around at least 50# of gold at any moment in time.0 -
Absolutely no excuse for a lot of things in life. Just so no one mistakes
Life's not fair!
Tragic, but there is enough blame for all. Any medics on the jog? A physical given before the trip? Did Buschow ask for assistance? Why has everyone else always made it to the pool?
You pays yo' monies, you takes yo' chances.0 -
A-hole pays $3200 (or so, more with travel expenses) to take a hike across the desert, and he dies. Darwin wins again. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by p3skyking
Did Buschow ask for assistance?
I guess you have never seen someone at this point of dehydration and exhaustion. They are delusional and can't think because their body is shutting down. They don't know where they are or what they are doing, they usually can't speak, and they don't even know what's wrong with them.
I think the "expert" guides didn't want to have to admit "one guy didn't make it" to future customers. They should have hydrated him immediately. That was their job and that's what they were there for.
There is no excuse for their actions.0 -
quote:Originally posted by p3skyking
Absolutely no excuse for a lot of things in life. Just so no one mistakes
Life's not fair!
Tragic, but there is enough blame for all. Any medics on the jog? A physical given before the trip? Did Buschow ask for assistance? Why has everyone else always made it to the pool?
You pays yo' monies, you takes yo' chances.
The chance of death by dehydration is never something one voluntarily and knowingly pays for.0 -
I would like to how many time the task was completed in the past....
Up to about a year a go I used to ride 60 - 100 mile tours.
I'd use between 1 and 1.5 gallons of H2o on those trips. I figure this event would require more.0 -
This reminds me of summer football training. I played high school football for four years, 1964 through 1967. We had two practices a day in August for three weeks before school started.
Our coaches' role model was Bear Bryant. The idea was to make practice a living hell and make the players tough.
So just imagine a two hour practice, wearing a helmet and full pads including a heavy cotton jersey, in 95 degree heat. Full contact, tackling and blocking drills, and lots of windsprints. We got no water breaks. Our coaches pushed us and pushed us, and I did learn that you can indeed do things that you thought were impossible, if you are motivated.
I guess it did make us tough, but it is a miracle some of us didn't die of dehydration or electrolyte imbalance.
This dead hiker was 29 years old, I bet the average 29 year old American would die if subjected to one of our '60s vintage summer football trainings.0 -
quote:Originally posted by allen griggs
This reminds me of summer football training. I played high school football for four years, 1964 through 1967. We had two practices a day in August for three weeks before school started.
Our coaches' role model was Bear Bryant. The idea was to make practice a living hell and make the players tough.
So just imagine a two hour practice, wearing a helmet and full pads including a heavy cotton jersey, in 95 degree heat. Full contact, tackling and blocking drills, and lots of windsprints. We got no water breaks. Our coaches pushed us and pushed us, and I did learn that you can indeed do things that you thought were impossible, if you are motivated.
I guess it did make us tough, but it is a miracle some of us didn't die of dehydration or electrolyte imbalance.
This dead hiker was 29 years old, I bet the average 29 year old American would die if subjected to one of our '60s vintage summer football trainings.
I'll bet the first time you became delirious or spasmed, the coaches would have watered you down, inside and out.0 -
quote:Bernstein, the school's owner, agreed to answer questions only by e-mail. He said BOSS instructors can give water based on their assessment of a camper's needs.
If these guides were trained as well as they claimed, they should have been able to read the signs. The guy was past the point of needing 'first aid' or a wash down, an hour before he died. It was needless. If they had offered water and he refused, I would think differently, but he apparently did no know there was any available.
quote:And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water on that torrid summer day.
Buschow wasn't told that, and he wasn't offered any. The guides did not want him to fail the $3,175 course.
Wreckless disregard.0
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