Wilful Manslaughter
People of an adventurous bent appear to be besotted with the notion that extreme undertakings add lustre to their character, their reputations. They feel good about themselves for being able to withstand difficult physical conditions. Sometimes things can get out of hand. Like the hang glider who landed upside-down, his parachute caught on the top of trees, and he was suspended there for eight hours before being rescued. He was lucky. As was the woman sky diver whom heavy wind gusts blew into the upper atmosphere, then plummeted to earth, miraculously unscathed.There are countless examples of athletic men and women who take great pride in their physical condition and their ability to withstand and surmount difficulties that would frighten most people. Committed mountain climbers who work themselves into physical states of perfect muscular strength and endurance to enable them to mount painfully long and difficult ascents into the world's largest, highest and most difficult mountain terrains. And while most survive to celebrate their endeavour, a portion of these hardy souls succumb to the elements and the sheer physical difficulties, leaving their mortal souls to the mountains.
These are all people who, ostensibly, know the odds. Are aware that they are embarking on potentially dangerous missions. And for what? Why, to achieve their own personal satisfaction. Of signal importance to a great many people; pride in achievement, glory in the finish, gratification at the opportunity to 'prove' themselves, gratitude at survival. People don't, really, believe that bad things will happen to them, since they believe themselves to be prepared, knowledgeable, capable and fit. It is, after all, human nature.
But what about other people who also embark on difficult personal missions and do so with the assistance of paid professional guides? There's a certain comfort factor inherent in knowing your effort is part of a collective, that you have paid good money for someone or some knowledgeable and professional group to help bring you through a difficult experience. Is the responsibility of the individual to his/her own well being somehow mitigated through their expectations of others' experience and help?
If a professional group advertises that it will hire out its expertise to assist clients in achieving a difficult physical goal, where does the ultimate responsibility lie? If advertising and persuasive public relations confer a reputation for trustworthiness and capability on a professional group and they encourage the ambitious uninitiated adventurer to take part in a difficult experience is there not a weight of responsibility on the shoulders and reputation of that professional group?
Dave Buschow, 5-ft-7, 180 pounds who had been based in the Arctic tundra in Greenland with the U.S. airforce, who worked security at U.S. bases outside the country, and who loved nature sought to undertake an adventure of a lifetime with the help of a Utah-based group, Boulder Outdoor Survival School. He paid $3,175, along with eleven other adventurous clients, for the privilege of undertaking a 28-day survival course.
Day two in the searing Utah desert saw 29 year-old Dave Buschow from New Jersey wracked with cramps, speech slurred, hallucinating, and desperate for water. And after a tortuous trek where the other clients witnessed Dave Buschow collapse time and again in extremis after going about ten hours without water, he finally dropped dead of thirst, a close distance from the group's goal; a pool of water located within a cave in the desert.
The expert guides who led this dozen people - hikers from a multitude of backgrounds - on a wilderness survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness witnessed this young man's condition, but they were unwilling to allow him to 'fail' the course. It was their intention to have him 'dig deep' into his physical and mental resources, make him push himself to and then beyond his limits. To make it to the cave on his own.
Although the client group of a dozen adventurers, including Dave Buschow, weren't aware of it, the guides carried emergency water supplies with them. They could have, at any time, relieved his condition, given him water, and then encouraged him to carry on. His mission could have been accomplished; the only difference that he partook of a sustenance his body needed to survive, something as elemental as water, critical to human existence.
"It was so needless. What a shame. It didn't have to happen," said Ray Gardner, the Garfield County sheriff's deputy who hiked 10 kilometres to recover Mr. Buschow's body. "They had emergency water right there. I would have given him a drink." "Down there in those canyons it's like a furnace," said his brother. "I don't have my brother anymore because no one would give him water."
The adventure school, however, denies negligence. It blames Dave Buschow, claiming he might not have read the course literature, may have withheld health information (a New York doctor checked a box on the the application declaring him fit for a survival programme) and that he might have eaten too heavily before leaving New Jersey to take up the gruelling course. All of which is commentary. The life-giving water the guides carried was denied this man.
Malicious contempt for his inability to keep up with the others? Gross abdication of responsibility? Involuntary homicide?
A consensus from the other campers revealed Mr. Buschow to have been cheerful, encouraging and coherent for the most part, but clearly a man in deep trouble hours before he collapsed."We were all desperate for water," a camper wrote. "Every time Mr. 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." Classic symptoms; easily read by 'experts'.
According to Dr. Edward Leis, Utah's deputy chief medical examiner, Dave Buschow's death was as a result of dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.
Labels: Human Fallibility
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, May 03, 2007
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