Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2015 8:36:04 GMT -8
Plane Crash Victim Hikes out from Backcountry
I suppose some of you have followed news accounts in recent days of the 16-year-old girl who hiked out in three days from a plane crash that killed her grandparents.
My sympathies to the young lady and her family. Her story is remarkable, and I'm glad she is able to tell it. Perhaps that will aid her recovery. I do not want to trivialize the trauma of her experience but to learn from it if possible.
For those not familiar, I'll recount the story below and include a map of the area where the incident happened. But I'm curious about how such experience might affect one of us — if we had survived such an ordeal in youth.
What do you think? Would you . . .
The plane crash was near the east margin of North Cascades National Park not far from the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington State. The park itself is a designated wilderness, Stephen Mather Wilderness Area.
The grandparents were flying the girl back to her home in Bellingham, Washington from Kalispell, Montana, where she had been visiting her mother. Caught in white-out conditions, the single-engine plane attempted to climb but instead flew into the side of a mountain.
The girl, sitting in the back seat of the small plane, was able to quickly escape the burning plane at the crash site. She attempted to pull her grandfather out but could not because of the flames. In the attempt, her hair, jeans, and hand caught fire. And she was forced to witness her grandparents' deaths in the burning plane.
Distraught, the girl stayed at the crash site in virtual wilderness for the first night. On the following day, she attempted to hike out by following a stream downhill. Convinced that she was going to die, and suffering hypothermia, she slept near the stream on the second night. Feeling a renewed determination to survive, on the third day she made her way to highway 20 about 6 miles northwest of where the PCT crosses the highway at Rainy Pass.
At the highway, near the trailhead for the Easy Pass Trail, she tried for an hour to flag down a passing car for help, but no one would stop — evidently because she appeared such a disheveled mess. Near the trailhead, two hikers finally picked her up and gave her a ride some 20 miles to Mazama, Washington. There she was picked up by an ambulance and taken to a hospital for treatment of dehydration, burns, scrapes, hunger and so on.
She has since been interviewed by news media and has described her desperate struggle to survive. With them, local law enforcement have described her in superhero proportions as she was presented with the daunting task of surviving wilderness conditions for nearly three days before finding help.
Having no food, shelter, warm clothing, maps, compass or all those other items we consider essential to such a venture, she's lucky to be alive, and she appreciates that.
The Bellingham Herald
CNN News
Map Location, Easy Pass Trailhead
I suppose some of you have followed news accounts in recent days of the 16-year-old girl who hiked out in three days from a plane crash that killed her grandparents.
My sympathies to the young lady and her family. Her story is remarkable, and I'm glad she is able to tell it. Perhaps that will aid her recovery. I do not want to trivialize the trauma of her experience but to learn from it if possible.
For those not familiar, I'll recount the story below and include a map of the area where the incident happened. But I'm curious about how such experience might affect one of us — if we had survived such an ordeal in youth.
What do you think? Would you . . .
- • Never want to hike the backcountry again?
• Want to know as much as possible about backcountry survival?
• Carry a Bic lighter with you everywhere? . . .
The plane crash was near the east margin of North Cascades National Park not far from the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington State. The park itself is a designated wilderness, Stephen Mather Wilderness Area.
The grandparents were flying the girl back to her home in Bellingham, Washington from Kalispell, Montana, where she had been visiting her mother. Caught in white-out conditions, the single-engine plane attempted to climb but instead flew into the side of a mountain.
The girl, sitting in the back seat of the small plane, was able to quickly escape the burning plane at the crash site. She attempted to pull her grandfather out but could not because of the flames. In the attempt, her hair, jeans, and hand caught fire. And she was forced to witness her grandparents' deaths in the burning plane.
Distraught, the girl stayed at the crash site in virtual wilderness for the first night. On the following day, she attempted to hike out by following a stream downhill. Convinced that she was going to die, and suffering hypothermia, she slept near the stream on the second night. Feeling a renewed determination to survive, on the third day she made her way to highway 20 about 6 miles northwest of where the PCT crosses the highway at Rainy Pass.
At the highway, near the trailhead for the Easy Pass Trail, she tried for an hour to flag down a passing car for help, but no one would stop — evidently because she appeared such a disheveled mess. Near the trailhead, two hikers finally picked her up and gave her a ride some 20 miles to Mazama, Washington. There she was picked up by an ambulance and taken to a hospital for treatment of dehydration, burns, scrapes, hunger and so on.
She has since been interviewed by news media and has described her desperate struggle to survive. With them, local law enforcement have described her in superhero proportions as she was presented with the daunting task of surviving wilderness conditions for nearly three days before finding help.
Having no food, shelter, warm clothing, maps, compass or all those other items we consider essential to such a venture, she's lucky to be alive, and she appreciates that.
The Bellingham Herald
CNN News
Map Location, Easy Pass Trailhead
