Man Dies of Thirst During Survival Test

BOULDER, Utah - 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.

But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various walks of life were being led by expert guides on a wilderness-survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness.

And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water on that torrid summer day.

Buschow wasn’t told that, and he wasn’t offered any. The guides did not want him to fail the $3,175 course. They wanted him to dig deep, push himself beyond his known limits, and make it to the cave on his own.

Nearly a year later, documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act reveal those and other previously undisclosed details of what turned out to be a death march for Buschow. They also raise questions about the judgments and priorities of the guides at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. What matters more: the customer’s welfare or his quest?

“It was so needless. What a shame. It didn’t have to happen,” said Ray Gardner, the Garfield County sheriff’s deputy who hiked six miles to recover Buschow’s body. “They had emergency water right there. I would have given him a drink.”

“Down in those canyons it’s like a furnace,” said Rob Buschow of Glen Spey, N.Y. “I don’t have my brother anymore because no one would give him water.”

While regretting the tragedy, the school, known as BOSS, has denied any negligence and instead blamed Buschow, saying the security officer and former Air Force airman did not read course materials, may have withheld health information and may have eaten too heavily before leaving River Vale, N.J., for the grueling course.

Noting Buschow signed liability waivers, the school said: “Mr. Buschow expressly assumed the risk of serious injury or death prior to participating.”

Garfield County authorities declined to file charges, saying there was insufficient evidence the school acted with criminal negligence. The prosecutor said participants knew they were taking a risk.

The U.S. Forest Service, however, has stopped BOSS from using Dixie National Forest for a portion of the 28-day course this summer until it gets outside advice on providing food and water. The agency said it was the first death of a participant in a BOSS survival exercise.

The Colorado-based school dates to the late 1960s. In 1994, BOSS alumnus Josh Bernstein, a New Yorker with an Ivy League education, took over marketing and administration and later became owner. He also is host of the History Channel’s “Digging for the Truth,” a show that takes viewers on archaeological adventures around the world.

BOSS emphasizes personal growth through adversity, and using your wits to survive. The mantra: “Know more, carry less.”

BOSS has wilderness courses lasting just a few days to a month. During the 28-day survival course, held 250 miles from Salt Lake City, campers are required to hike for miles and drink what they can find from natural sources.

Tent, matches, compass, sleeping bag, portable stove, watch — all have no role. Campers are equipped with a knife, water cup, blanket and poncho and are told they could lose 20 pounds or more. Among the things they learn is how to catch fish with their hands and how to kill a sheep with a knife.

The course is intended to push people “past those false limits your mind has set for your body.”

“Somewhere along the many miles of sagebrush flats, red rock canyons, and mesa tops of Southern Utah — somewhere between the thirst, the hunger and the sweat — you’ll discover the real destination: yourself,” BOSS says on its Web site.

Buschow had marched the arctic tundra in Greenland. And after leaving the Air Force, he worked security at U.S. bases outside the country. He recalled his days as a Boy Scout in his May 2006 application to BOSS.

“Although in the yrs since, I have continued to appreciate Mother Nature,” he wrote by hand, “I still haven’t ever truly immersed myself in her embrace. I fear that I’m becoming a ‘comfort camper,’ having never come close to looking her in the eyes.”

Buschow described himself as 5-foot-7 and about 180 pounds, with a resting pulse of 66. A New York doctor checked a box declaring him fit for a survival program. Buschow signed the application, acknowledging that BOSS was not offering a “risk-free wilderness experience.”

The documents obtained by the AP disclose the brief but bitter wilderness adventure of Buschow:

On July 16, he gathered here with the 11 others, including some from England and a college student who had bicycled from Maine. Most were in their 20s and 30s. They ran 1 1/2 miles so the staff could assess their conditioning.

Buschow “was not the most in-shape but not the most out of shape,” recalled camper Charlie DeTar, 25, the cross-country bicyclist.

On the second day, after a cool night, the group set out around sunrise and stopped about 8:30 a.m. to dip their cups into Deer Creek in what turned out to be the only water until evening. Buschow pulled a bottle from his pack — but was warned by the staff not to fill it.

During the early phase of the expedition, participants can drink water at the source only and cannot carry it with them.

The group, led by three guides, formed a loose chain, with stronger hikers ahead of people struggling at the 6,000-foot elevation, or more than a mile above sea level.

“We didn’t cover all that much distance, maybe five to six miles. We were moving slowly, a lot of up and down,” DeTar said in an interview from Vermont. “You don’t have food, you don’t have water, so you have to move at the slowest pace of the group.”

They rested periodically under pinons and junipers, all the while looking for signs of water, such as green vegetation in canyon bottoms. At least two attempts to dig for water failed.

Not everyone had close contact with Buschow, but a consensus emerges from the campers’ written accounts obtained by the AP: While cheerful, encouraging and coherent at times, he was a man in deep trouble hours before he collapsed.

“We were all desperate for water,” a camper wrote. “Every time (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.”

“Every time he continued, he’d rush ahead, often in the wrong direction and so exhausting himself even more,” the camper wrote.

The sun was described as blazing, inescapable. “There were no clouds,” a camper wrote.

Some people vomited that day, including a man who got sick three times — a typical misery on the rigorous course, according to BOSS. Buschow was suffering from leg cramps about 2:30 p.m. and said he was feeling “bad.”

“This was the first point at which I became concerned knowing that delirium happens when dehydration becomes severe,” a camper wrote. Buschow “also asked if there was much air traffic that went through here, and asked if anyone had a signal mirror.”

(The Forest Service, citing privacy concerns, deleted certain names from documents.)

By 7 p.m., as the sun descended and temperatures cooled a bit, the group approached a cave in Cottonwood Canyon, known to BOSS guides as a reliable source of water.

Buschow’s companions were carrying his possessions for him. Within earshot of people exhilarated about the pool of water, he collapsed for the last time.

“He said he could not go on,” staff member Shawn O’Neal wrote two days later in a statement ordered by the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office. “I felt that he could make it this short distance and told him he could do it as I have seen many students sore, dehydrated and saying ‘can’t’ do something only to find that they have strength beyond their conceived limits.”

“I wanted him to accomplish getting to the water and the cave for rest,” he wrote. “He asked me to go get the water for him. I said I was not going to leave him. … Shortly thereafter I had a bad feeling and turned to Dave and found no sign of breathing.”

A staff apprentice climbed to the top of a dead juniper to get reception for a cellular call to the Boulder office.

Five people took turns trying to revive Buschow while red biting ants crawled over his face. A rescue helicopter from Page, Ariz., arrived about 90 minutes after he passed out, but a defibrillator failed to jump-start his heart. Campers gathered in a circle for the news: “Dave is dead.”

They had a moment of silence and ate almonds, sesame sticks and energy bars distributed by staff, the first food since sandwiches more than 24 hours earlier.

Buschow’s death was caused by dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, according to Dr. Edward Leis, Utah’s deputy chief medical examiner, who found no evidence of drugs or other factors.

DeTar, a camper who performed CPR, said no one was told that BOSS guides carried emergency water, but “I heard it slosh” in a pack.

Should it have been offered to Buschow? And if it’s for an emergency, what triggers it?

“Hard to say,” said DeTar, who has a master’s degree from Dartmouth College and is trained in wilderness first aid. “One thing that BOSS offers you is an opportunity to push yourself physically into the red zone. … He was 200 feet from the water. Is that the point where you give it to him? Or 500 feet?”

Bernstein, the school’s owner, agreed to answer questions only by e-mail. He said BOSS instructors can give water based on their assessment of a camper’s needs.

“The group appeared to be within the normal parameters we’ve seen on the trail over the years,” Bernstein said. “Many were, understandably, tired, but morale was high and the participants were determined to continue. … He seemed capable of completing the hike to camp that evening.”

In a Feb. 27 letter to the Forest Service, Bernstein said Buschow may not have trained properly, pointing to comments he made to another camper about drinking a gallon of water a day and eating cheesesteaks to bulk up before the expedition.

His brother, Rob Buschow, said: “It’s sickening when they blame the victim.”

After Buschow’s death, five people left the course. The six campers who completed the exercise returned to the site to leave a bouquet of foliage and a marker of stones.

“I didn’t want to have the fear of the desert instilled in me because of this incident,” DeTar said.

I say if you take people out to do hairy things you are responsible for them.

I think the instructor liked being in charge. I don’t think the instructor knew how to be responsible. Big difference.

No kidding. Water is probably the one thing that one can’t “acclimate” to the lack of to any appreciable degree

Yup. It's like saying you're "tough enough" to resist electrocution. You can't fight physiology.

I think the 'school' is screwed here. Once he asked for water he had given up the fight. Their obligation was to provide it unless he rescinded his request. It might not be criminal (haven't looked at the laws), but his family will pocket some cash from this. Too bad he's dead - no amount of money will console them.

I say if you take people out to do hairy things you are responsible for them.

I kind of agree. A bear watching trip where some really random thing happens is one thing; someone asking for water and then dying because they didn't get it is another...

I’d say you don’t have your brother anymore because he was stupid.

Pretty much.

We call it "evolution in action".

Also, the people hosting this "survival training" were clearly every bit as stupid as he was. The first clue was not letting them fill their canteens at the creek at the beginning of the trek.

“ration your sweat, not your water”

I used to think about that when I was long distance running in the summer in Texas. That water isn't doing me any good sloshing around on my water belt. I needed to get it in me for it to help. At a reasonable pace of course so as not to get sick. And you're right, hyponatremia (low sodium) has only been recognized for the threat it is in the last few years. If you're low on your electrolytes, drinking more water is just going to dilute you even more. They used to preach drinking as much water as you could, until a few people died from it. It's not as much a danger as dehydration so I say drink all you want, but don't force it and get some electrolytes in your system while you're at it.

Course when I was a kid we used to have to take salt tablets if we were out in the heat for an extended period of time. Then salt became "bad". I don't even know if you can get those things any more. I eat a lot of salted sunflower seeds to keep my sodium up.

I'm not running these days, but I do a lot of Bikram "Hot" Yoga, 90 minutes in a 110 degree room. You can lose 4-5 pounds on a humid day. You'll cramp up bad if you do that for a few days without suplementing your salt, calcium, and (I'm told) magnesium.

At moderate temperatures and humidity you’re good for much longer - about three days I think. In the hot dry air of the desert it “wicks” away a lot faster.

Their was a history show on awhile ago about these three guys lost at sea in their boat with nothing to drink etc. They finally risk the natives of Africa in search of water. Still no water (desert), and instead they got picked up by slavers, etc.

They drank their own urine in the boat, which once or twice did some good. But on the fourth time around it was dark brown and with no water left in it! (YUCK!) Once the slavers took them they only got a little water when found. But they were able to drink the camels’ “fresh” urine! (Yuckier!).

IMO, the people who run BOSS will lose a wrongful death civil suit. They were obviously untrained to recognize heatstroke and severe dehydration.

If you are gonna see how tough you are, you don’t walk into daytime desert hikes without a LOT of physical training. The BOSS course is taking people who are physical unprepared for this kind of ordeal pushing them beyond the breaking point. That is insane.

Also, the basic premise of the course is flawed. What is the object of the course? To survive or to see how tough you are? From reading this article, this isn’t a survival course but a physical endurance/toughness course. There is a HUGE difference.

At moderate temperatures and humidity you’re good for much longer - about three days I think.

Terri Schiavo lasted 14 days without water. Think of all the resources that could have been saved if they'd dropped her off at this place.

And I note this guy's death was so incredibly peaceful.

In all seriousness, this is very sad.

Not only that, but how many people who may have walked 30 miles on a treadmill have never faced real endurance tests? How many people start whining the moment the first mile marker is reached?

That would be me...I NEED A TWINKIE! I NEED A ROOTBEER! What do you mean we haven’t left the lodge?

I remember hiking a seven mile hike in a Maryland park. Hills and trees, and everything like that. Started off great, but by mile five, I was ready to die. I learned a lot from it.

THe main thing I learned was to not do 7 mile hikes.

Most of what the survival training guides were teaching sounds completely wrong to me. As someone else said, it was more of a “see how tough you are” endurance course than a real survival course.

“In a Feb. 27 letter to the Forest Service, Bernstein said Buschow may not have trained properly, pointing to comments he made to another camper about drinking a gallon of water a day and eating cheesesteaks to bulk up before the expedition.”

I have read that people eat high fat, high calorie foods when they hike the Appalachian Trail all summer. They still burn fat and calories like crazy and end up losing weight. It sounds like this guy was doing a similar thing, and loading up on calories (energy stores).

Most of what the survival training guides were teaching sounds completely wrong to me. As someone else said, it was more of a “see how tough you are” endurance course than a real survival course.

I went on a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) course back in 1978 in the Wyoming mountains. They teach you how to function in the outdoors. We hiked out the last four days without food, but you don't need food over the course of a few days to survive. Water, however, is critical after two or three days.

I imagine NOLS would not teach that you walk in the midday sun to get to water in the desert. You would walk at dawn or dusk (or nighttime if there is a moon) - to conserve the fluid in your body - and hide in the best shade you can find at midday. This, IMO, was just stupid - if you don't die of dehydration, you can die of heat stroke.

I have read that people eat high fat, high calorie foods when they hike the Appalachian Trail all summer. They still burn fat and calories like crazy and end up losing weight.

I dropped a lot of weight backpacking for a month in that course (not eating for four days just accellerated it at the end).

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