Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Sounds like the nephew is gearing up for a lawsuit judging by his comments.
People seem to not take responsibility for their own actions anymore: everyone is always the victim of someone or something.
It is un-American to me. What are we becoming? How did it happen?
The question should be what this outspoken nephew did before the couple went on this trip.
Has he advised them to get a satellite phone? Make sure there is enough food/extra water in the RV? That their maps were set correctly in settings to avoid dirt roads?
They were older and physically extremely limited couple:both overweight; she was using a walker;
He was an Agent Orange cancer survivor- with one lung removed.
He was dying as he had troubles breathing in the low oxygen mountain air from day one according to her.
She was only able to get snow for herself with the walker - allegedly using her n95 mask to collect snow.
WTH? They didn’t have light plastic containers in their RV?
Where was that “concerned and caring” nephew at the time of trip planning?
He failed his job as a family member to advise these older and disabled people against going off the roads and get in touch with him immediately if something went even slightly wrong.
The shouldn’t even be in RV traveling in remote locations at all in their conditions
wondered the same thing - did they talk to family and go over their travel plans?
And the N95 water thing - nothing else to use? And yea both were not in good health at all.
Sounds like the nephew is gearing up for a lawsuit judging by his comments.
Obviously can't read his mind and certainly can't blame him for being upset, but suspect the lashing out and legal recourse posturing is tied to guilt...as you said, what actions did HE take to help his relatives avoid disaster? If he feels he failed them, time to look around and attempt to lay blame on anyone within reach. Hope it goes nowhere.
If you listened to the interview with the nephew you would learn that what happened is that they did not turn the "highway" setting on the GPS and so the GPS told them to go on this side road. Apparently if you set it to "highway" setting it would have restricted them to major highways. The road was a normal dirt road, like others they had driven on. They were not concerned about the road, but eventually the truck got stuck and they slept in the RV for the night.
Then in the morning, they decided to take the car to drive back down the hill to where they had been. They thought it was just a short little trip down the hill and so they did not bring any food or water because of that. They eventually got stuck. The man started tapping SOS on the horn every ten minutes and taught his wife how to do it. They took turns doing that. The woman went up the hill using her walker to get snow to melt to drink. They had GPS on their cell phone and tried to send text messages of their location but then realized no one knew where they were. Eventually the man died.
Rescuers eventually heard the SOS from the horn of the car after the rescuers found the RV.
If you listened to the interview with the nephew you would learn that what happened is that they did not turn the "highway" setting on the GPS and so the GPS told them to go on this side road. Apparently if you set it to "highway" setting it would have restricted them to major highways. The road was a normal dirt road, like others they had driven on. They were not concerned about the road, but eventually the truck got stuck and they slept in the RV for the night.
Then in the morning, they decided to take the car to drive back down the hill to where they had been. They thought it was just a short little trip down the hill and so they did not bring any food or water because of that. They eventually got stuck. The man started tapping SOS on the horn every ten minutes and taught his wife how to do it. They took turns doing that. The woman went up the hill using her walker to get snow to melt to drink. They had GPS on their cell phone and tried to send text messages of their location but then realized no one knew where they were. Eventually the man died.
Rescuers eventually heard the SOS from the horn of the car after the rescuers found the RV.
If they went up the mountain in the RV - would they not have known what kind of trip it would be if they took off in the KIA?
Bad GPS directions, (does not report if route is accessible via large RV)
He died after they ran out of food and water
She survived by scooping snow in her n95 and melting it.
Rough terrain + Snow + dirt road is not friendly to an RV towing a car.
He may have been a previous truckdriver or similar, so felt confident they would make it across that road.
Stuff happens (lots of stuff could have happened in their situation, and DW could not have got them out. )
Don't put others at risk, but not preparing for the worst (CA hiking couple with kid and dog, AZ hiking date + death...)
I have done my share of RV'ing and driving through Northern Nevada when there is still the possibility of snow or very cold weather seems like a bad idea to begin with. Plus there are vast areas that are very lightly populated. So sad what happened. But you have to use common sense, especially as you get older. Going from Albany, OR to Tucson is very easy if you take I-5 and then cross over the desert near Bakersfield towards Arizona. Only difficult stretch would be in Oregon near the CA border where you cross mountains. But if something went wrong there are lots of people around. Why they picked such a remote route this early in the year makes little sense.
Why do people put so much faith in GPS for remote areas? A quick look at the coordinates on Google Maps shows the location is nowhere close to an actual road. Another case of too much trust in technology combined with stubbornness resulting in death.
Because if you aren't familiar with GPS there is a good chance you haven't heard how unreliable it is. Learned this first hand in 2020 in a recently acquired car, when I got stuck on a recently washed out road, in the dark, in a small town. Even though the car was only three years old the GPS hadn't been updated, and even if it had been I found the washout had only happened six months prior, so who knows if that would have been accounted for yet. Sometimes 'bad decisions' are a matter of bad luck.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Parnassia
Maybe I'm callous (and of course all this is hindsight), but I don't know what more anyone needs to learn from this sad situation. The take home message that these events repeat over and over again seems pretty obvious to me.
Not knowing the route or the area. Red flag.
I agree with many of those red flags, however I don't think not knowing the area is one of those. If people only ever went to areas that were known to them the travel industry would be dead. I think for most people that's kind of the whole idea, to visit new and unfamiliar places. Of course you should always do your research, but that's not a guarantee, as I found out firsthand on my trip mentioned above.
Multiple trips my hub and I drove both a small RV or a car out west in Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah (never towed a car) and yes the GPS did misguide us several times and we ended up on roads that we would not call roads. Even turning around was nerve-wracking. Yes we saw other vehicles on those roads and then we didn't see them after a while.
Unlike this couple we were in good health, could walk miles if needed and always had food and water onboard.
An RV can't help survival if they are off cell phone range and they did not leave a daily drive plan with concerned relatives.
Even being able to walk miles can't help if you don't know what direction the nearest help or cellphone signal is.
It's not hard to lose cellphone signal in semi-remote places even on well-paved roads. We never traveled after dark.
Should semi-invalid people stay home? Nope.
Our RV aged out and we sold it. I think spouse is relieved a bit but we had wonderful trips.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Maybe I'm callous (and of course all this is hindsight), but I don't know what more anyone needs to learn from this sad situation. The take home message that these events repeat over and over again seems pretty obvious to me. 
