14 Comments

I'm surprised the people made it as far as they did... so many things in this would have made my Girl Scout troop leaders faint. (Yep I was a Girl Scout, ok not a Navy Seal.)

The bleeding reminds me of an event in this movie -- not sure if it's medically accurate but the idea is that rapid inhalation of extremely cold air can case "pulmonary embolism". But why did that girl survive? Maybe she kept her nose covered more to warm up the air or something...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_River_(film)

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No one seems to know why she survived when everyone else died. Very curious indeed.

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Indeed, what were they thinking? But everyone makes mistakes in the outdoors at first and some die on account of it. Pulmonary embolism is am interesting thought.

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As grotesque as their last hours could look, they were actually pretty normal for people experiencing severe hypothermia in addition to altitude sickness, which could worsen the symptoms. In this regard neither this story, nor the Dyatlov’s pass sound like a mystery to me. Many people didn’t believe the official report that they died from hypothermia, but to me it’s believable. The only weird symptoms is eye bleeding, it could be caused by something else, but contrary to severe hypothermia, oxygen toxicity doesn’t progress that fast. So I don’t deny that there could have been any other cause of their deaths. No one knows for sure.

As for the leader being an experienced mountaineer, I no matter how experienced the mountaineer is, the influence they have on the situation in an expedition is still limited. Incidents can happen to any group.

As for the girl that survived, it could be because she had some medical condition or anomaly that made her normal blood pressure lower than that of most other people or oxygen easier absorbed, or something else that gave her an advantage and contributed to her survival.

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Interesting take

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I'm inclined to agree with you. The eye bleeding, if it happened, remains an oddity, but really, mountains and weather will happily kill you for reasons that are not uncanny at all, even in good conditions. Hypothermia and a bit of hysteria brought about by exhaustion and inadequate food (if they were not trained up for short rations).

Yes, no leader can really safeguard their group. And leaders whose physical strength and psychological determination exceed the usual can be an absolute liability. THEY can bivvy out on an Alpine ice ledge and resume in the morning, but you will be dead. They don't understand the difference between exhaustion that can be pushed through, and the version when the body just stops.

Mountains, weather, over ambitious leader, judgement errors, biology, just like the Cairngorms disaster and many others.

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Good story. I always enjoy a good mystery.

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I'm glad you liked it. I like mysteries too.

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Unrelated to the post but

Do you think Jake paul is a psychopath ?

He shows most of the traits but I'm not an expert.

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I haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe he is anything other than a normal young man.

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Interesting story this, I had not come across it.

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This one is less known than the famous Dyatlov Pass incident, and with a living eye witness, it makes it all the more mysterious.

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I didn't know about that one either! I suppose I've only looked at ordinary mountain incidents and not mysterious ones.

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There 's a lot of mystery in the world

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