Survival Stories: Hot,
Thirsty and Lost in Death Valley
***/*****
This
article is about a mother, daughter and friend who decide to drive
through Death Valley for a day of exploring. The family is from
Pahrump, Nevada, just 60 miles from the entrance of Death Valley.
The mother is familiar with the Valley but has never visited a part
called the Racetrack, a dry lake bed where shifting boulders have
left skid marks in the mud. The mother hadn't planned to visit this
part of Death Valley but noticed a sign and followed it on an
impulse. They became lost driving down a dirt road and were never
able to gain their bearings. A GPS is pretty well useless in Death
Valley since most of the dirt roads are unnamed. The mother drove
the car until they ran out of gas, which fortunately died near some
locked up trailers. The temperature was over 125 degrees and they
had only brought 4 bottles of water. Fortunately, the trailers had
some supplies and water. They were rescued by a helicopter search
team that had been dispatched after her husband contacted
authorities, 3 days after they left home. He had been away visiting
and didn't know how long she had been missing. He was smart and
checked the last usage of her credit card, which flagged an admission
charge to a part of Death Valley.
I was
interested in reading this article because I'm suppose to visit Death
Valley this summer with my family. I learned several things from the
article. First, you should bring several bottles of water per person
if you are going to travel in such harsh climates. Second, never
take such a trip without first planning your route; a map is better
to bring since you can't trust a GPS. Third, don't leave your
vehicle without having another source of shade available. Finally,
ensure you inform someone of your plans and your scheduled return
time so that they can alert authorities. The part I didn't like
about the article is that the mother says that she was confident all
along that no harm would come to them. She doesn't recognize that
it's pure luck that she lived. If she had not come across that
trailer that had limited water and food and if her husband had not
alerted authorities, she and the two girls would have died. She is
too cocky and doesn't seem to have learned from the experience.
Miller,
Kenneth. "Survival Stories: Hot, Thirsty, and Lost in Death
Valley | Reader's Digest."Reader's
Digest.
Reader's Digest Magazine, 1 Sept. 2012. Web. 29 May 2014.
<http://www.rd.com/true-stories/survival/survival-stories-hot-thirsty-and-lost-in-death-valley/>.
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