Posted on 12/20/2006 8:40:51 PM PST by randita
Autopsy shows Mt. Hood climber not injured after all
04:59 PM PST on Wednesday, December 20, 2006
By kgw.com and AP Staff
HOOD RIVER, Ore. -- Autopsy results Wednesday showed that Mt. Hood climber Kelly James, whose body was recovered Monday, was not injured as previously thought.
AP Photo
Brian Hall's sister, Angela Hall (left) and Sheriff Joe Wampler speak to the media. James did not have a dislocated shoulder as reported by authorities earlier this week. Furthermore, James' body showed no broken bones or injuries that would have prevented his mobility, according to the state medical examiner, Dr. Larry Lewman.
Lewman did say it appears James suffered from hypothermia and dehydration.
With yet another snowstorm barreling in, the search for two climbers feared dead on Mt. Hood was called off Wednesday. Rescue teams gave up any hope of finding the two missing climbers alive on the wind-whipped mountain.
"We've done everything we can at this point," said Sheriff Joe Wampler, after returning from one last, fruitless flyover of the 11,239-foot peak.
The dangerous search lasted nine days. It began as a hunt for three climbers. One was found dead in a snow cave near the summit, and the two others may have fallen to their deaths, been buried by an avalanche or died of hypothermia.
The rescue search ended with concerns about the safety of searchers, worsening weather and the decreasing chances the climbers could have survived. Wampler said family members decided the rescue search should end, although not all members agreed.
The entrance to the first snow cave. "It was pretty much their conclusion. The chance of survival is pretty nil. I don't think I can justify putting any more people in the field with the hope of finding them alive," the sheriff said.
"(It was) some of the worst weather we've seen all year," he added. "This time of year Mt. Hood is a very dangerous place to be."
As weather permits, officials will now look for the bodies of Brian Hall and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, he said. Often when climbers go missing so late in the season, though, their bodies are not recovered until the spring.
The men set out Dec. 8 for what was supposed to be a two-day climb to the peak and back down. On Dec. 10, climber Kelly James used his cell phone to call his family and report the party was in trouble and that his two companions had gone downhill for help. James, a 48-year-old Dallas landscape architect, was found dead in a snow cave on Sunday.
High-tech locating devices that might have aided searchers in their hunt for three missing climbers are not widely used by those climbing Mt. Hood, according to several local climbing experts.
Volunteers continued scouring the mountain for signs of Hall, a 37-year-old personal trainer from Dallas, and Cooke, a 36-year-old lawyer from New York City. They held out hope that they had dug out a snow cave or sought other protection. But climbing gear found on the peak suggested the two may have fallen to their deaths or been buried by an avalanche.
The search was delayed numerous times because of the weather and the threat to the safety of the searchers, many of them volunteer mountaineers from local search and rescue teams.
The final attempt to find the men alive was Wampler's one-hour flight in a county plane to the 11,239-foot peak Wednesday morning, during a short break in icy, cloudy conditions as a storm moved in. Rescuers say it is one of the largest searches in memory on Oregon's tallest mountain. During the height of the effort, scores of volunteers, deputies and National Guardsmen on foot and in helicopters and a plane had searched the mountain.
But the search had already been scaled back dramatically on Tuesday. And the immediate prospects for a recovery search are limited by weather.
"Right now things are moving in from the west," Wampler said of the snowstorm. "That window has shut on us."
Many volunteers have already packed up and returned to their regular lives, and helicopters used in the search had returned to their bases.
"I feel good about what I did. I wanted to do what I could for the family," Wampler said. "You start something, you want to finish it."
Perhaps he was just way too exhausted to continue and the others knew they had to get out of there.
Still strange.
Hypothermia does weird things to people....maybe he refused or could not physically move....
The consensus on the main thread about this is that James may have been the last one left after his friends fell or met with some other misadventure. In other words, it makes more sense the other way around.
Autopsy results Wednesday showed that Mt. Hood climber Kelly James was not injured as previously thought.
They never used the cell phone earlier. Not wise, but as I said we will never know. They may have fallen very quickly into a state of hypothermia that hindered their better thinking.
God bless their families in their healing and bless the souls of these three men. I I am wondering if what you say is true. This struck me as well or maybe all three were in a stage of hypothermia that impacted much of their thinking. But we will never know. It does seem very odd that they would split up and even dangerous for them to leave him on the mountain, if there was nothing incapacitating him.
Definately something to think about! I am more and more curious of the complete transcript of what he told his wife. There seems something missing in a way. Like the fact that he never told her what the problem was. Although he may have and it was just never reported. The other issue is that by the time he called her he was already deeply hypothermic. Why a snow cave for two though? That would go against this thought.
Either James was the first one to die or the last.
That has been speculated, but the consensus of Sheriff Wampler and the rescuers who were actually at the scene is that James was left behind (because of some incapacitation, orig. thought to be an injury) and the others went on and an accident to them ensued. Their view comes from the examination of actual evidence, like pictures from James's camera, footprints, gear, etc.--stuff that the public doesn't have the details about yet.
That was the earlier scenario. It seems during the call he said one of his friends was in a plane, and the other was "in town"; it's just conjecture, but the possibility is that he had seen his friends' demise and, in shock and under the effects of hypothermia, made those bizarre statements.
I was unaware of that. I havent been following this story closely
Phone call story:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/121606dnmetclimbers.11dd082b.html
May well be.
The main thread has lots of good info, as well as speculation. Here's a link to some of the later posts:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1755244/posts?q=1&&page=251
If you don't have shelter and dry clothes and a fire, the cold will simply kill you in a matter of hours.
I had read that he told her that "Cooke was on a plane and Brian had gone to the town for help", this somewhat suggests that he was already mentally hypothermic. I wonder why this article leaves this out or altogether mentions that Kelly said his friends went for help. I'll try to find where I had read this quote about the plane and town, but it was a local Mt. Hood or NW paper. I'll see.
Clearly, hypothermia was incapacitating him. People looking for other causes just don't understand that exposure will flat out kill you with no need for any assist from anything else.
I suppose it s moot point now.
I was only thinking we cant really know who got more delusional first.
I hope the familys find some peace
Especially if the winds are 100+ MPH....
Thank you for the link.
good point.
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