These causes of death ruled out in deaths of family of 3, pet dog found in national forest

I'm having a real hard time believing they died from Hypothermia, especially the way they were found. And the dog? Heat related issues?

Just not buying it.

a reply to: chiefsmom

Hypothermia...over heated. Ni water, 109 degees, hiking in sometimes steep terrain while carrying a baby? I totally see it.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan
I thought I read somewhere they did have water? I'll have to go check on that.
Still... the positions they were found in strikes me as odd for the cause of death.

Chief, and BFFT it wasn't hypothermia (death from extreme cold) it was HYPERthermia -- death from extreme heat.

I don't see why this (hyperthermia) would be so hard to accept, unless you accidentally mixed the two up. I've head heat exhaustion bad enough that I barely made it into the nearby fire station for help, and a friend of mine had heat stroke & was in the ICU for a while. All she did was go to the Shark Tooth festival in Venice for the afternoon. it's that fast with heat risks and the meatsack. Florida, the desert states, they're not the only places you can overheat and die in.

a reply to: Nyiah

Yeah, id blame autocorrect but i dont use it.

a reply to: chiefsmom

32 oz of water for all 4.

Id bet the baby died, then the parents became despondent. They were 1.6 miles from their car....

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: chiefsmom

Hypothermia...over heated. Ni water, 109 degees, hiking in sometimes steep terrain while carrying a baby? I totally see it.

They were very close to their car, they had water. How do all succumb at the same time with different body size?

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: chiefsmom

32 oz of water for all 4.

Id bet the baby died, then the parents became despondent. They were 1.6 miles from their car....

That doesn't explain the dog. There was a river not far away, dogs generally will not just sit down and die, they are usually found alive in these cases.

a reply to: SeaWorthy

The river with toxic algae blooms? He may have smelled it and walked away, too.

I've been in bad shape in the desert. I've drank water that made me super sick. But it kept me alive.

A friend in the same area years before me got dysentery from that body of water, so i got lucky.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: SeaWorthy

The river with toxic algae blooms? He may have smelled it and walked away, too.

I've been in bad shape in the desert. I've drank water that made me super sick. But it kept me alive.

A friend in the same area years before me got dysentery from that body of water, so i got lucky.

They were speculating about the area near having the toxic algae as an explanation, it seems it was not in that area but I think they said upriver.

Anyway if they speculated that the algae could have killed them the river must have been near.
They are defiantly in a bad place if they did not come up with a cause of death with all the publicity, I would think they don't know still.

originally posted by: SeaWorthy

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: chiefsmom

32 oz of water for all 4.

Id bet the baby died, then the parents became despondent. They were 1.6 miles from their car....

That doesn't explain the dog. There was a river not far away, dogs generally will not just sit down and die, they are usually found alive in these cases.

You don't live in a hot area, do you?

Look, I'm betting the dog died of kidney failure from heat stroke because my grandmother's dog died from it after she left for the day, and her power went out. In the middle of summer in Florida. The apartment was 115* when she got home, and the dog was having seizures despite still having half a bowl of water left still.

Water doesn't help after a while, the body shuts down anyway.

People really need to understand this stuff & just how fast it impacts us (AND animals), and take it seriously.

a reply to: SeaWorthy

The problem i have is an ability to empathize and envision. And that is very grim in this case.

The dog could have paniced. It depends on the dog, as there is such a wide range of dog behaviors. Some dogs see their owner collapse and they try to hump them. Some run away. Some panic. Depends on the dog.

But what im imaging is that the baby likely died first. They were only 1.6 miles from their car and safety. Maybe they just stopped to try to take a break and never got on their feet again.

originally posted by: Nyiah

originally posted by: SeaWorthy

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: chiefsmom

32 oz of water for all 4.

Id bet the baby died, then the parents became despondent. They were 1.6 miles from their car....

That doesn't explain the dog. There was a river not far away, dogs generally will not just sit down and die, they are usually found alive in these cases.

You don't live in a hot area, do you?

Look, I'm betting the dog died of kidney failure from heat stroke because my grandmother's dog died from it after she left for the day, and her power went out. In the middle of summer in Florida. The apartment was 115* when she got home, and the dog was having seizures despite still having half a bowl of water left still.

Water doesn't help after a while, the body shuts down anyway.

People really need to understand this stuff & just how fast it impacts us (AND animals), and take it seriously.

Born and raised in the Nevada desert.

I understand what you are saying but all of them at once? It is a hot area and yet no one has seen whole families sacrum before.
It was 100 out by the time they neared the car but that was only for the last part of the hike it was cooler earlier on they had water all the time it seems they were near the river at least part of that hike I would be interested to know how long they were near shade, water and were actually in the hotter temperatures. They had clearly hiked places much hotter they are shown hiking all over the world.

He previously admitted in his 20 years on the job, he'd "never seen a death-related case like this".

salten.cz...

How long does it take to die from heatstroke?
For some, this process happens quickly—sometimes within two or three hours. That's part of what makes it so lethal: You can go from feeling bothered by the heat to dead in 90 minutes.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

But what im imaging is that the baby likely died first. They were only 1.6 miles from their car and safety. Maybe they just stopped to try to take a break and never got on their feet again.

With heat I would assume the baby would have died first.

But the woman was 30 yards away up the trail, I would have thought the dog would have been moving with her if she was still going after the husband sat down.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
I'm having a real hard time believing they died from Hypothermia, especially the way they were found. And the dog? Heat related issues?

Just not buying it.

It reminds me of the CEO of the tech firm found dead in the back of her car after her odd call to her Parents saying we are in the matrix and noting is real. No cause of death, just dead.
This guy was British Snapchat engineer I guess so much already dead ends in searching him.

I've head heat exhaustion bad enough that I barely made it into the nearby fire station for help, and a friend of mine had heat stroke & was in the ICU for a while.

a reply to: Nyiah

I think it snuck up on them and they may have hit a pocket that basically cooked them.
I read some temps were 109, so it's easy to believe.

a reply to: JAGStorm
I think you have something with the heat pocket. During the NW heat dome last June, temps varied from 104 (my patio) to 108 (official) to 115+ reported in many locations within a mile or two. Down in a canyon as they were, with the sunlight reflecting from both sides, they could well have been borderline already and then hit a pocket or a slight gust at 120. The dog? Loyal and stayed with its people. Awful.

I live in the Calif desert and have dealt with temps of 120+ while working at a mine near death valley and other areas.
The local search and rescue team has recovered bodies of people with nearly full canteens full of water.
They were rationing it till after they died.
The best place to store water is in your body not in a canteen

They also recovered a body of a man setting right next to a spring of nice clear water that they believe was afraid to drink because he believed it had arsenic in it.
It did, but not enough to harm anyone unless they drank it for months.

I have broke down in the desert at over 115 degrees, and i had 4 litters of water and a spring nearby that i knew had too much arsenic to drink.
I saved most of my drinking water and by soaked in the spring till after it cooled down and walked out 5 miles to a friend's gold mine. The water in the spring also kept my drinking water cool and even more drinkable.

A father collapsing like that leaving the baby on the ground behind him. My guess it was something they ate/drank or something in the air. Wonder if there's any pockets of natural gas in the area that could be leaking.

Anyone watch the TV show "The 100" the mountain men used a gas cloud weapon to rid the mountain of any unwanted guess.