3 out 4 Missing found by rescue workers

I disagree mightily with any strategy of moving unless there is imminent life threatening danger in your current position when you know you are profoundly lost.

If you know you are going to be missed by someone, and the Kims had to know they'd be missed because, if no one else noticed they hadn't made it back, their co-workers did, you have to assume a search is on. You also have to assume a delayed reaction as it dawns on people that you might be in trouble and that they will need some time to have a reasonable reconstruction of your route. As it turned out, the authorities had a fair idea of where the Kims had been, and where they were going to, which gave them a reasonable guess that a search of the coast range on all routes tracking back from Gold Beach would be their best bet. Granted, one of the hardest parts of being lost in inhospitable circumstances is having the patience to wait for rescue.

Unless the circumstances are immediately life threatening, you complicate the search immensely by striking out and make yourself a moving target. In the case at hand, James Kim's going for help not only complicated the search by splitting up the party that needed finding, but it complicated the search by forcing an expansion of the grid the searchers needed to comb.

Even had he moved in a straight line, which he decidedly did not given that he reportedly covered eight miles of the drainage to get one crow mile from the car, every linear mile that a mover puts between himself and his last known location squares the area that has to be searched. One linear mile equals two square miles that have to be searched, 2=4, 4=16, 5=25, 6=36, etcetera. Move too far, or worse yet, too far in a very unlikely direction, and you make it next to impossible to be found in most wooded terrain in time to do you any good.

Moving, especially from a road that is likely to be among the first terrain features searched by the SAR folks, has to be considered as a very desperate last resort. Obviously, in hindsight, James Kim was not as near to that point as he had feared.

I am sad for his family. I can't imagine the conversations that must have occured on Bear Camp Road.
 
I supsect that he was well aware of his chances of survival when he left the car prepared to die for his family. The reason i say that is he had the sense to stay there 8 days before leaving his family. One would think that after the first 3 days or so when you are still strong that would be the best time to march out. He made the decision probably against his wife wants and wishes that this was the only way out for them the only chance they had. The man had balls, because once that cold hits you it takes all the strength out of you " he was wearing only street clothes" , but he kept going instead of turning back and kept going for 8 miles rough environment before dying. If reports are true he took off his clothes to indicate where he was and possibly a signal to indicate where his family was. Sure he was not prepared for the weather and what not and he made a wrong turn which we have all done. But still takes a certain kind of courage to venture out like that knowing that you are probably going to die and still continue

I highly doubt that anyone on the board wouldn't try to walk out, and try to flag down a car. It would be damn hard to see your family slowly starve and get week with kids crying for 9 days unless you are some cold heartless bastard. Infants and children tend not to do poorly in the cold compared to adults one must keep that in mind when making the decision to leave or not.
 
hannibal lecter spyderco said:
If reports are true he took off his clothes to indicate where he was and possibly a signal to indicate where his family was.

Severe Hypothermia makes you feel like you are burning hot.. Almost every severely hypothermic patient I have rescued/recovered in the mountains here had removed their clothing..

I highly doubt that anyone on the board wouldn't try to walk out, and try to flag down a car. It would be damn hard to see your family slowly starve and get week with kids crying for 9 days unless you are some cold heartless bastard. Infants and children tend not to do poorly in the cold compared to adults one must keep that in mind when making the decision to leave or not.

You can live for 3 weeks without food.. That's not to say you will like it, but 3 weeks is a long time. Water is the most important item. You can only survive about 3 days without water.. They had fire, they had snow to melt for water, he should have stayed put.
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Again.. Sorry for the families loss.
 
hannibal lecter spyderco said:
I supsect that he was well aware of his chances of survival when he left the car prepared to die for his family. The man had balls, because once that cold hits you it takes all the strength out of you " he was wearing only street clothes" , but he kept going instead of turning back and kept going for 8 miles rough environment before dying. If reports are true he took off his clothes to indicate where he was and possibly a signal to indicate where his family was. Sure he was not prepared for the weather and what not and he made a wrong turn which we have all done. But still takes a certain kind of courage to venture out like that knowing that you are probably going to die and still continue

I highly doubt that anyone on the board wouldn't try to walk out, and try to flag down a car. It would be damn hard to see your family slowly starve .
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He got desperate and lost his judgement. Was he brave? Sure he was but this doesn't make what he did less stupid.

He didnt have the gear or know how. Many hypothermia victims do strip off clothes its a weird thing they do and nobody for sure knows why. I can say with confidence the clothes were not for signalling but rather the actions of a dying man.

I hope people on this board learned something from this and do not try something so foolish. Board members would have realised all the resources near the car and made use of them. Fire and water were not a problem, shelter was taken care of. Just food and we can go weeks without it, so no matter how you slice it his judgement was impaired or he didn't know any better.

SKam
 
hannibal lecter spyderco said:
I highly doubt that anyone on the board wouldn't try to walk out, and try to flag down a car. It would be damn hard to see your family slowly starve and get week with kids crying for 9 days unless you are some cold heartless bastard. Infants and children tend not to do poorly in the cold compared to adults one must keep that in mind when making the decision to leave or not.
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Considering the circumstances, I would have tried to walk out well before 9 days had passed. I would have assumed that, given how profoundly lost he was, that no one was going to find me.

I can't imagine why he left the road though, unless he was suffering from hypothermia and the resulting poor judgement that comes with the condition.

What I can't figure out is how he managed to get as far up a logging road as he did without realizing that he needed to turn back. Here's a map of where they were searching for him:

oregonmap_ud_503x600.jpg


There's no scale there, but it looks to me that he made it a good 30 miles up a logging road in the winter time before getting stuck. Does anyone here have first-hand experience with that area? Is it possible to mistake a logging road for a two-lane paved highway in Oregon? Is it possible that the road was clear when he got on it, giving him the impression that it was being plowed, but that the snow fell so fast while he was traveling that he got trapped? Is it possible that he simply couldn't find a place to turn around once he got on that road?

I keep scratching my head, wondering how you even get in that predicament in the first place. Unless conditions up there are drastically different from every logging road that I've even been on, I have to think that I would have turned around the minute I hit the dirt road. I mean, even if it's completely covered in snow and iced over, I've never failed to know that I wasn't on pavement anymore.

I keep thinking about it and I keep coming away, baffled.
 
It is my understanding he travelled over 10 miles but ended up just over a couple from the car. Which is typical in his situation and why I mentioned it earlier.

With tennis shoes and jeans you would not have chosen to walk out in that or at least I want to believe this.

Darwin is a bastard.

Skam
 
skammer said:
With tennis shoes and jeans you would not have chosen to walk out in that or at least I want to believe this.
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I never would have gotten anywhere near Oregon with just tennis shoes and jeans in the first place. I've only ever been to that state once. It's beautiful, but it scares me. Yet another environment that has too many surprises outside my realm of experience.
 
Hartsell said:
Here is a Google Earth description of Mr. Kim's route.

http://www.layoutscene.com/james%2Dkim%2Dpath/
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I just brought that area up on maps.google.com.
I can see how he got lost and couldn't find his way out of there once he got into that maze. Given where he left the road, it looks like he could have gotten back to NF-23 only if he'd stayed on the road for another couple of miles, and then known to take a right at the exact correct fork in the road. Without a good map of the area, or a GPS unit that actually showed those dirt roads (they never do, at least the car models don't), or a hell of a lot of luck, he was pretty much screwed.
 
hannibal lecter spyderco said:
I supsect that he was well aware of his chances of survival when he left the car prepared to die for his family.
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I respectfully disagree. His chances of survival in those conditions wearing cotton clothing ("street clothes") was zero. If you have a zero chance of survival it is pointless to leave your family to die. Even if you don't expect rescue, from a moral perspective you are better off staying with your family and dying with them. Leaving to surely die a pointless death is simply pointless.

So, no, I don't think he was well aware of his chances of survival. If he was aware that he had a zero chance for survival he would not have left his family.

hannibal lecter spyderco said:
If reports are true he took off his clothes to indicate where he was and possibly a signal to indicate where his family was.
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Rescue Mike's right about this - you feel very hot just before dying from hypothermia.

hannibal lecter spyderco said:
Sure he was not prepared for the weather and what not and he made a wrong turn which we have all done. But still takes a certain kind of courage to venture out like that knowing that you are probably going to die and still continue
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Change "probably going to die" to "surely going to die". When I read this story and read that he left the car in blue jeans and sneakers I knew he was dead. He died within hours of leaving the car. He had no chance.

hannibal lecter spyderco said:
I highly doubt that anyone on the board wouldn't try to walk out, and try to flag down a car. It would be damn hard to see your family slowly starve and get week with kids crying for 9 days unless you are some cold heartless bastard. Infants and children tend not to do poorly in the cold compared to adults one must keep that in mind when making the decision to leave or not.
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Without the proper gear in those conditions, I doubt anyone on this board would try to walk out even after nine days. Choosing not to die a pointless death, that does not help your family, does not make anyone a cold heartless bastard.

I think you're right that James Kim was a brave man and his courage is to be admired. But that's only because James Kim thought he had some small chance to walk out and find help. The actual matter of fact is that he had no chance. None. That doesn't detract from the courage he showed - but the courage he showed doesn't detract from the fact that he made the wrong decision.

Perhaps one of the greatest psychological skills to survival is accepting your circumstances exactly as they are, not as you would hope them to be. Hope kills.

my .02 cents
 
I am honestly not trying to be a spoiler here but after 9 days and seeing NO traffic, the man was certain they were in a remote location and therefor out of the expected travel route-- search area.
Many criticized the folks in New Orleans for sitting on there butts waiting for someone to provide for them. James Kim DID sit still for SAR for 9 days before making the decision he had to act. Mistakes put him and his dependants in a bad situation but trying to go for help under the circumstances is a decision I will not criticize him for.
Members of this board would not BE in that situation :
"I hope people on this board learned something from this and do not try something so foolish. Board members would have realised all the resources near the car and made use of them. Fire and water were not a problem, shelter was taken care of. Just food and we can go weeks without it, so no matter how you slice it his judgement was impaired or he didn't know any better."

so you are correct- we HAVE conisdered it and do learn from the unfortunate/ill prepared. I teach my kids to learn from other peoples mistakes instead of their own. :)
My prayers go out to the Kim family and I hope the kids will always remember the sacrifice their Dad made to try to get them help.
Bill
 
OK, here's what I don't get, and sorry if this was covered previously.

If they drove there, why not unstick the car (digging with your hands or a tree branch) and just drive out the way you came?

nevermind, I forgot that it was probably snowing the whole time.
 
I don't have first hand experience with that particular road, but have extensive experience with Forest Service roads all over Oregon in the Coast, Cascade, and Siskiyou Ranges, the last of these being the NF the Kims became stranded in. The vast majority are dirt. Some of the more heavily used ones are paved or partially so. Most of the heavily used ones are capable of two lane travel. Many of the moderately to lightly used ones are more like one and a half lanes, where you can pull into the hill cut to allow a downhiller to pass without scraping you. No one is reasonably going to mistake any of them for a state maintained highway.

When closed, some of the NF roads have gates, some of them chains, and some of them just a sign. You cannot ever count on the road being repaired, or in some cases, even expect it to be reasonably traveled in the winter--snow present or not.

Snow is not the only thing that can close these roads and make them impassable in winter. I have seen these roads wiped out by loss of a culvert creating a cut in the road. I have seen ones where the road bed had given way and the road sloughed off down hill. I have seen ones made impassible by rockslides, mudslides, blown down trees, along with the standard of being choked with snow. This last year, one of my favorites in the Willamette NF (Cascades) was impassible without 4WD and chains, into early June first by snow, and then by a rockfall during the run-off.

What am I doing out there? Sometimes hunting or shooting, sometimes camping, sometimes getting a Christmas tree, rocks, or plants. What I am never doing is traversing one in the dark unless I intimately know the road, know that it's paved, and know there is some point to the trip, like an inhabited destination. Someone always knows my itinerary, because there is no cell service in most of the NFs in Oregon. The Willamette NF is only 45 miles east of a city of 130,000, only a handful of miles from the resort community of Detroit, has the popular resort at Breitenbush Hot Springs in it, and the popular camping spot of Elk Lake inside its boundaries, but if you screw up and get yourself lost/stranded/injured within it, without a map and some orienting skills, especially in winter, you might as well be on the moon.

Even if you have to do a 180 point turn on the most goat trackish NF road, and sometimes I have felt that I had to make that many back and forths, you will nearly 100 percent of the time have adequate space to turn around if you have a reasonable length wheelbase. As these roads are often marked with little more than a green vertical sign that say something like "FS 4703," it is easy to get "lost" if you don't have a decent map showing the NF road ways or know the backcountry like the back of your hand.

What is remarkable about the Kim case was seeing the site where they found the car, from the air. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined it would be as far as the apparent condition of the road. A lot of dirt was showing through. Their primary problem is that they apparently got caught up in a big dumping of wet snow, which must have raised visions of the Donner Party or something. However, by the weekend that James Kim had set out, the day time high temps in the higher elevations were inbetween the mid-40s to low 50s. Had they conserved their fuel, and not burned their tires they might have been able to drive back, but that is hindsight. It's just that their Saab looked nowhere near "stuck" as I had imagined it.

Another feature of lower mountain ranges that the Kims were apparently unaware of is that the valleys are considerably colder than are the ridges. As many of those ravines are steep walled, they only receive a few hours of peak sunlight a day and do not warm up appreciably. This is apparent even in the summer in certain narrow folds. Climbing down into the drainage was up to a 30 degree deficit during the day and about a fifteen degree deficit at night. Had that move been avoided, it might have made all of the difference to James Kim.

I dislike second guessing anyone who paid the ultimate price, but I am looking forward to this particular inquest as it will tend to concentrate on the chain of decisionmaking that went awry.
 
DaveH said:
OK, here's what I don't get, and sorry if this was covered previously.

If they drove there, why not unstick the car (digging with your hands or a tree branch) and just drive out the way you came?
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In the Sierra Nevada, anyway, it's possible for the first snow of the season to close an entire road for the winter. So if you're driving up the wrong road and a major snow storm hits, thereby trapping your car, you aren't going anywhere; at least, not by car; until spring.
 
It's interesting. Look where he left the road: http://www.layoutscene.com/james-kim-path/index6.html

From that location, it appears as though you can see the road he's on across the gulch. While I don't presume to know what he was thinking in his condition, maybe he thought it would shave miles off his trip to go across the gulch and to the road (thus reaching help faster and getting his family to safety faster) rather than follow the winding logging road around; but once he got down into it he couldn't get out so he followed it.

Or maybe he was just delusional at that juncture...

Despite the previous mistakes - not having an adequite vehicle kit, going way too far off route and finding yourself stuck in a remote location, and deciding to leave the vehicle.... it may have still been savagable had he better prepared for his venture. They did burn the tires of the vehicle which was good, but as seen on Science of Survival a car can provide a wealth of materials to help you survive should you deem to leave it.

While leaving the car ended being the poor decision, if you do it don't forget that you can't help your family if you're dead. If you have to stop on the road, build a fire, dry out clothing and rest, even overnight, it's better than attempting to keep going until you fall out yourself!
 
We can debate whether it was poor judgement on his part to leave or not. I highly doubt his decision process was altered because of the cold, according to latest reports he was able to follow the map and was highly motivated and searchers and wilderness experts are amazed how he manage to hike 8 miles in rugged condition the way he did. As a side note" I was unaware that one strip off clothing when face with hypothermia" As far as the clothes were conerned he had brought extra clothing to leave atrail for pe
ople to see
 
If they drove there, why not unstick the car (digging with your hands or a tree branch) and just drive out the way you came?
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On "I shouldn't be alive" they had a very similar situation where a family (Father, mother, baby) traveling to a funeral, took the wrong road in the midst of a snowstorm and in the dark. They ended up miles into a vast wilderness where the roads were closed down for the winter, so no other vehicles came by. After getting stuck, they tried to dig themselves out for days but couldn't. Once they ran out of food, they decided to leave the vehicle - not just the father as in Kim's situation, but the whole family. They walked deeper into the wilderness, towards a mountain instead of back the way they came! After leaving the vehicle and walking to exhaustion, the mother and baby hid under an outcropping, barely alive, while the father set out again to find help. He eventually found someone and the family survived - barely. They didn't burn tires or really use the vehicle other than as a shelter.

Then, on "Science of Survival" Les Stroud from survivorman did a remake of the same episode. He pointed out that while you shouldn't leave the vehicle, if you decide to the vehicle itself can be scrapped for useful parts. He made like mukluks using the seat covers, foam insulation, and water proofed them by using rubber from the tires he didn't burn, among other things.

According to the family, when James Kim left the vehicle to get help that morning, he said he'd be back later that afternoon. This indicates he did not plan to be out overnight - combine that with the deceptively warm highs (40-50 degrees) that may have been the reason he did not scap parts of the vehicle to help him survive should his search for help turn into a multi-day trek. Or maybe he just didn't think of it.
 
Where I'm from, people die every year unfortunately, of hypothermia. Usually their car breaks down, they try to walk to the nearest farm and don't make it. They are often locals who should know better, but get used to the cold and don't bring along more than a light jacket. You would be shocked to find out how fast they get hypothermic. As the brain gets colder and shuts down, one of the last things it registers is warmth. Almost all of them are found either nude or in their underwear. Very strange and sad.
 
The behavior of clothing removal by some victims of hypothermia is documented (for example in the MercK Manual) but was often misunderstood (or deliberately mislabeled) as looting of the dead in war.
 
OK, we are looking at this from 20,000 feet trying to figure out what may have been going thru his mind.
Let me suggest you go without food for 9 days, then try to figure out what was going on in his mind.

You can survive for UP to 3 weeks without food, but that is no gaurantee.
Add cold weather, and you are burning calories much faster.
Melting snow for water is well and good, but, I'd suspect he was partially dehydrated and partly hypothermic when setting off.

So, it's not like one of us walking out of our front door, right now, to trek 8 miles. It was a malnurished, partly dehydrated , mildly hypothermic person setting out. Right there i would have given him maybe a 10% chance of making it.

What was on his mind? Not much. He was more than likely delusional.
Rational thought probably had departed his brain a day or two before.

Why do people in life rafts, lost at sea, jump out in the middle of the ocean and start swimming never to be seen again?

A. they are thinking irrationally and really believe they can "make it".
or B. They have pretty much gone insane, and the thought of hiking out, which they have pondered now, for , many days is the overiding thought in their head, so, they do it.

Perhaps part of this lesson is making a plan, early on in the situation, and then sticking to it, NO MATTER WHAT.
If, during day one and day two, you convince yourself that all your knowledge and training says "Stay with the vehicle" then you need to believe it and keep reinforcing it within yourself. That way, when you do become slightly delerious, the over-riding thought in your head will be, "stay here".

Unless someone in this forum has been trapped like this for a week or more, then we cannot really put ourselves in that place.
It had to be a living hell.

He may have simply snapped!

It's very sad.
 
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