Man dies of thirst during survival test

[Oeditpus Rex]

BOULDER, Utah (AP) - A man died of thirst during a wilderness-survival exercise designed to test his physical and mental toughness, even though guides had water. They didn't offer him any because they did not want to spoil the character-building experience.

By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.

After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6603850,00.html

[datasuspect]

1. as butthead would say:

"dumbass"

[Robb]

2. Gentleman's C+ for effort.

I'm going to hell, I know.

[Bombero1956]

3. fuck that

I'll have a little less character but give me the goddamn water.

[NightWatcher]

4. how do you know your limits unless you get close?

this guy got too close. The teachers should have recognized his distress. I wonder if it was a professional school, like Tom Brown Jr's survival school.

[Oeditpus Rex]

5. Find out for yourself

http://www.boss-inc.com/

[NightWatcher]

7. they're pretty good, and accidents sometimes happen

[Mutley]

6. That's rough.

Wonder why he didn't ask for water.














Hi, by the way!:hi:

[jobycom]

25. He did.

According to the article, at the end he was asking for water, but the guide told him he was so close, he could make it on his own. Even after his final collapse, the guide refused to give him water.

The participants didn't know the guides had water.

[THUNDER HANDS]

8. so what are the guides going to be charged with?

involuntary manslaughter? Negligent homicide?

I think they're responsible here.

[NightWatcher]

9. the participants sign waivers (usually)

it's an accident, the same as if you go parachuting and it doesnt open.
A tragic, tragic accident

[eyesroll]

12. Waivers generally only exclude forseeable risks.

Courts have held that you generally can't sign away your right to sue for recklessness or intentional acts, just negligence and regular old accidents.

If your parachute doesn't open because it was negligently packed, or you panicked and pulled the wrong thing, or it was just one of those risks inherent in parachuting or whatever, the waiver will likely preclude your estate from suing.

If the parachute doesn't open because the person who packed it was drunk, or was out to get you, or noticed that there was a big tear in the pack and was too lazy to do anything about it (rough definition of reckless: the person did not do a relatively tiny thing to mitigate a relatively huge risk)...the waiver generally doesn't cover that.

Same with this situation: Depending on that state's standards, a jury would need to determine whether the guides were reckless or just negligent.

EDIT: Plus, waivers only cover civil suits -- you can't waive your right in advance to have someone prosecuted for a crime. Even if the estate can't sue, the state may be able to press criminal charges. Negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter could work here, maybe not...

/eyesroll needs to break away and study because she's got Civil Procedure, not Torts, tomorrow

[realisticphish]

15. an accident

is when you slip and fall. When you being to hallucinate, and exhibit obvious signs of heatstroke and no one gives you water, it's negligent homicide

[Deep13]

22. murder

I don't know the exact law in Utah, but the Common Law definition of "depraved heart" murder is:

The unlawful killing of a human being with a mental state consisting of a wanton recklessness manifesting itself as an extreme indifference to the value of human life. In other words it means that while the defendant did not mean to kill the victim, he was acting in such a way that made a fatality likely.

Consent is not a defense.

[KurtNYC]

10. "guides"?

wait a second... he goes out in to the desert for this survival test and there are "guides" who have water but they don't give him any so he dies. If these guys were lifeguards would they just swim next to the drowning people and keep them from grabbing any floatation devices?

What exactly is their job? To make sure he doesn't die of something OTHER than thirst?

[KG]

11. forget all that macho shit, and learn how to play guitar.

[wildhorses]

13. holy shit

and i thought i had bombed some tests:wow:

talk about the ultimate failure:wtf:

By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.

that sounds VERY negligent to me:shrug:

[realisticphish]

14. Jesus

you don't need to be a fucking EMT to know what heat exhaustion, then heat stroke and dehydration look like, especially when you're a guide.

Fuck them. The desert can kill VERY quickly, and they should know this. I hope they go to prison.

[JVS]

16. He failed to achieve!

[Shine]

17. Well that's a sad story.

:( What a way to go...


Hi OR! :hi:

[Blue-Jay]

18. I've narrowed down my list of travel guides.

[pokerfan]

19. Rule of threes

You can die within:
3 seconds without thinking
3 minutes without air
3 hours without proper shelter
3 days without water
3 weeks without food

USAF survival manual

I'm shocked that they couldn't recognize his signs of obvious distress:
By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.

[reyd reid reed]

20. Waivers or not...

the people who organized the exercise should be held accountable. They failed.

[Deep13]

21. "They didn't offer him any because they did not want to spoil the character-building experience."

How much character can a dead man have.

For the deceased a Darwin award.

For the so-called guides who let someon exert himself in the desert for 10 hours without water, I would find them guilty of manslaughter at least and perhaps depraved heart murder. One cannot consent to homicide. They knew the dude was in trouble. They knew how vital water is in a desert. They could have saved him but did not.

[mvd]

23. It's a case of manslaughter indeed

I can also see a lawsuit, even though it appears that he did not prepare correctly.

[THUNDER HANDS]

24. this story reminds me of that movie

i forget the name of it, but it came out in the 80's and starred Kevin Bacon as a wilderness leader taking young boys out into the woods. I think Sean Astin (the guy who played Sam in Lord of the Rings) was in it too. Bacon takes the kids out, basically terrorizes them, breaks his leg, and the kids have to help him back to civilization.