California family dies under mysterious circumstances | Hacker News Reader

California family dies under mysterious circumstances

npr.org

112 pointspseudolus137 comments

Any chance they died because they walked into a carbon dioxide accumulation?

CO2 is heavier than air and can accumulate in natural hollows. I've read about game animals suffocating rapidly when they walk through CO2-filled hollows, but can't immediately find a link. Natural CO2 emission does kill trees [1].

[1] https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-81/Intro/MonitoringData/CO2/CO...

Didn’t know this happens outdoors. Does the CO2 rise well above the surface though? I’ve heard there are “Dog Caves” [1] around the world where CO2 is low in the cave and will kill short animals but spare adults.

[1] https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/03/why-dogs-cant-stand-ca...

There was another article that stated the police were treating the area with hazmat suits because of possible carbon monoxide suffocation.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article253588249.html

https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article253577919.html

In 2018, there was the family that died in Tulum, Mexico from CO poisoning as well:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/iowa-family-four-found-de...

Very good proposition. This can happen next to old mines, waste rock piles especially. Not so much that the CO2 kills you, but it displaces the oxygen. You enter an oxygen deficient environment. Suffocation can happen almost instantly. Similar to confined spaces. However with weather changes, lets say a low pressure system moving in, the CO2 exhales from the surrounding porous rock. You starve for oxygen, almost immediately. And even the oxygen in your body gets sucked out. It has happened before, it took a long time for coroner's to figure out. Mine rescue personnel even get killed, thinking they can hold their breath. Have often wondered why this is isn't presented more to the public, so they can be warned. Avoid hollows, low spots, etc, especially in old mining country. (The reactions in the rock use up the oxygen pricing CO2 - But that's a longer discussion...)

They suspected that nearest mine was 3 miles away now they suspect poisonous cyanobacteria in one of the ponds

Co2 probably not...there's a very pronounced physical reaction to an exposure. CO? Or other noble gasses, maybe

CO poisoning leaves a telltale bright red skin coloration in human victims. CO prevents oxygen release from hemoglobin, making venous blood near the skin as red as arterial (oxygenated) blood. I think responders would have seen this if CO was the toxic agent.

It's puzzling - as you pointed out, CO2 poisoning causes extreme distress. You'd think victims would have shown evidence of that.

Maybe as another poster described, asphyxiation occurred not due to CO2 poisoning, but to oxygen deprivation through displacement of air by CO2. Oxygen deficit asphyxiation is very fast (seconds) and asymptomatic.

It will be interesting to see what they finally determine CoD to have been.

I think this is most likely. There are areas around Mammoth with CO2 warning signs.

Here is an article about 4 men that died next to a waste rock pile in BC, Canada, from lack of oxygen. Another problem is almost all health and safety sensors use oxygen as a baseline for testing, so in a lack of oxygen they do not work accurately. So even experts can get caught in such an extreme situation. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/lack-of-oxyg...

CO2 asphyxiation can happen as a result of lake turnover. Perhaps the most famous case is Lake Nyos where 1700 people died in 1986.

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-this-small-lake-in-africa-o...

As someone who lives nearby part of the year, I really think this story has taken on a life of its own. It's true that there is some gross algae in the South Fork Merced but from all of the public info, they didn't even make it that far. If you look at where they started and where they were recovered, you'll see that in between is a fully exposed descent down a series of switchbacks. It was extremely hot that day. They probably died of heat exhaustion. It's unusual for it to get the dog too, but if they didn't have water for themselves, they probably didn't for the dog. It's not hard to imagine getting to the bottom and realizing you're in serious trouble.

This family closely mirrors mine, so I've followed the story closely, and it seems like they just made a grievous error in judgment in an area they weren't familiar with.

Wouldn’t it have been obvious that they had no water with them? Did I miss that detail somewhere?

I am not familiar with that area, but when hiking, I try to map out natural springs.

You won't need them going in, but it's coming back. I once went through a gallon of water on a hot day, and that spring I found earlier saved me.

(I haven't been on a long hike since that day though.)

I hope you bring purification equipment too. Giardia blows.

Better than being dead.

“ Symptoms usually begin 1 to 3 weeks after exposure”

Water now will let you get to treatment next week.

I second this; a couple of years back I went hiking with a buddy, we had water but planned for a day hike that extended overnight, and we had to drink water from some streams. While I worried about illness, having water then meant we were able to get back to civilization, where if we got sick we could seek medical attention.

Purify when you can, absolutely - but if you have to choose between a stream and a spring, take the spring. Not guaranteed to be safe, but if it's popping up out of the ground, it's more likely to be safe than flowing surface water. Also, always consider what's up-stream.

This is counterintuitive to what I've learned about sediment filtration — any insight for a layperson?

The hazard of which is greatly overstated. You are probably fine drinking the vast majority of alpine springs if there aren't livestock grazing nearby. I rarely bring purification and I've never gotten sick.

Grew up in northern California. What is suspicious was the death of the dog. The dog can live 2-3 days without water - and most likely would have found some. (They smell water).

Maybe they just had the dog on leash so it wouldn't run off.

it seems highly unlikely the mother, father, and dog all died of heat exhaustion at the same time, unless the dog died/passed out and they were carrying it. Even then, I would have suspected the mother/daughter taking cover and the dad going ahead.

Incredibly rare. Huge numbers of people hike the PCT in the desert every year, and some years 1 or 2 people die of heat exhaustion. It's never big groups of people at the same time. Same with heat-related deaths at Grand Canyon, Death Valley etc.

The article says that they were avid hikers. I’m not familiar with the area, but carrying plenty of water seems like a relatively fundamental bit of prep. Am I missing something?

actually, the most avid hikers i know usually are overconfident, and underestimate their water needs. I always carry excess water, even after years on the trail, and always have to give some to my even more well traveled companions.

Back when I flew gliders, every educated pilot knew that the intermediate (aka "avid") pilots killed themselves the most. This is well established statistically. Overconfidence, complaisance with risk, etc.

Normalization of Deviance

"… [Y]ou could make it to a high level of expertise but then succumb to the complacency fed by your successful experiences, you could be beaten by the ever-present need to accomplish objectives (save time, save money, achieve schedules), or you might rebel against unrealistic SOPs and burdensome regulations.

Either way, you are living on borrowed time. Fortunately, you can change things."

http://www.aviationchief.com/normalization-of-deviance.html

Bingo, great read. Thanks for linking!

Good article, thanks.

I just listened to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6wuzm8p16M - The Rangers deployed to find Marcus Luttrell | Tony Brooks, Ranger | Ep. 107

Tony says Rangers are notorious for going out on missions without a safe amount of water or food. He said they nearly took casualties on that rescue mission due to dehydration, and that if he did it again he'd take less ammo and more water.

Also, see Aaron Ralston, the guy who disappeared for a week because he got his arm stuck under a rock in a slot canyon. He says his biggest mistake was not going out alone, but rather neglecting to tell anyone else about his plans and schedule. This kind of thing is super common among experienced outdoorsmen and women.

Something about there being old pilots and bold pilots, but very few old, bold pilots.

same for cave divers.

There's a book about this problem:

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Zone-Second-How-Pilots/dp/007...

The avid hikers I knew in SoCal and WA never made this mistake. They always knew how much to bring, usually bringing extra and dumping out what they didn't need at halfway. In SoCal I brought 2 liters minimum. You must have a different definition of "avid."

The most avid hikers I know don't bother carrying an emergency beacon, either :(

Emergency beacons are overkill for hiking and camping. But they're mandatory for backcountry skiing IMO, where there's a significant risk of an accident that makes you invisible from the surface, e.g., by avalanche, or falling into a tree well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_well

The number of stories I’ve read about people getting rescued tells me that the beacons are not overkill.

Activating you beacon while buried under snow seems very difficult if not impossoble.

I don't think you understand how beacons work. Avalanche beacons have a maximum range of around 60 meters. And you don't activate a beacon after an accident, you turn it on at the start of your run, or preferably at the start of the day. They only help us if we have a general idea of where someone might be buried, and even if we have a strong signal, we're still usually using our poles to actually find the person.

If we're talking about hiking and trekking, then we're talking about PLB's with satellite com. PLBs cost hundreds of dollars, and they must be registered with the SARSAT database. I personally don't know anyone who uses one for hiking or mountaineering. Do you?

I hike solo and carry one. Was about 200, registering online takes five minutes.

Another solo hiker & backpacker here; I have a Garmin inreach and they're fairly common among solo backpackers that I know.

I use a Mammut Barryvox avy beacon and a Garmin Inreach. Each for a different purpose, of course. They both cost hundreds of dollars.

I looked at those Garmins a while back. How do you feel about the size and weight?

Inreach Mini is totally worth the weight, not just for SOS but texting people (2-way) or getting weather reports. I've used it just for meeting up with people who also had Inreaches in places with spotty reception (many climbing areas). On a big climbs you can send check in messages to people at home.

Ah, I was looking at the full size ones. How's the Mini's battery life?

From my perspective, it's not someone else's responsibility to risk their lives and come rescue me as a hiker if I fuck up.

Do not rescue.

Good point!

Absolutely this also I went kayaking with some professionals that had some major accomplishments, like ocean crossings. I was the only one to take an extra paddle they all made fun of me for it guess who saved the day when we needed an extra paddle 4 days from civilization.

Safety tip: carry plenty of water and a personal locator beacon. You have to pay for the hardware and register it, but afterwards it's free and is a reliable way to summon emergency services from anywhere. It sends an emergency signal received by satellites and rescuers will be alerted of the location of the signal.

How is this not higher?

Unless you are in the middle of a desert, not bringing gallons of bottled water is OK. Water from some natural sources is safe for drinking (knowing which kind is important here); being able to boil water makes things even better. On the other hand, I myself have made day-long trips without consuming any water at all; looks like it is not far from truth that one can easily survive without water for a few days. (I would also note that to me it seems that for some people who I observed constant drinking water is more of a bad habit than a necessity.)

People make mistakes.

I used to be an avid hiker, on one trip I got to the trailhead and realized I had forgotten to fill the water bottles. I usually took 2 or 3 liters, but there was only half a liter in one of the bottles from the previous hike. It was really hot that day. I went on the hike anyway. I almost died.

They seem too well-educated to not be aware of toxic algae (very common throughout northern CA), and would know to not drink the water -- and certainly not give it to the child. Dogs do often tragically die every summer from drinking from streams, though. Similarly, it's odd for a responsible couple with a child and dog to not know to bring water, etc.

Heat or alage aren't impossible, but it sure does seem odd.

If it was an ascent rather than a descent that seems more likely, since they'd be exerting far more.

It just seems really weird for all three of them to die pretty much at the same time. (the baby of course could have died hours later of exposure)

I'm still betting on some kind of toxin.

Really tragic, they seemed like a really happy family.

You’d be surprised how much of an effort it takes to safely descend a steep slope with poor traffic. Definitely harder going up but if you check it out on google earth you can get an idea of the grade.

Yes but there is still the fact that they all died together. The initial autopsy didn't provide clues (which they would be looking for heatstroke which has a particular signature)

Lightning can kill without obvious marks, and it can kill several people at once. Not uncommon on a mountain. Poisoning or dehydration would not have happened to a group all at once.

Don't know about the weather at the time, but a lightning strike would be a possible explanation.

Quoting from an NPR article...

"This is a very unusual, unique situation," said Kristie Mitchell, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office. "There were no signs of trauma, no obvious cause of death. There was no suicide note."

From https://www.npr.org/2021/08/20/1029582815/california-family-...

Lightning leaves a mess and can be easily determined.

Not true at all. Lightning strikes often leave very little evidence. In particular, if the ground was wet and rocky, a strike some distance away could easily have electrocuted the family with no or minimal burning, and the actual strike location could be nearly impossible to find.

I've seen this with my own eyes. A couple of years ago I watched lightning strike a tree in the park across the street during a rain storm. Afterward the tree showed no evidence of the strike except for some bark blown off. There was no visible burning on the tree or the surrounding ground, but I guarantee that anyone standing near that tree would have gotten zapped.

Doesn't being electrocuted leave a weird scar with the paths of least resistance the electricity takes?

You can get a sufficiently large shock to stop your hearth without any tissue damage.

A few lightning strike victims have been left with Lichtenburg figures on their skin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichtenberg_figure

But this is an extreme symptom of a direct or nearly direct hit. Many lightning victims have no visible injury.

Lightning isn't very good at killing people, but it's capable of hurting you from a great distance, because it takes so little current across your heart to cause problems. There is evidence that as little as 5 mA can cause cardiac arrest, and this is the rationale for GFCI protected outlets in homes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device

Ground strikes can kill entire herds of animals with no visible signs of trauma.

I couldn't find any strikes during the time period where they were hiking on

https://www.lightningmaps.org/

map.blitzortung.org doesn't appear to have historical search. But it doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that lightning network didn't record it.

I didn't see any seismic activity nearby either. Thinking that maybe a poison gas flow might have been started by a small earthquake.

Thanks! It didn't occur to me that there might be publicly accessible lighting strike data and mapping, but of course there is, duh.

Do you happen to know the sensitivity of the network? That is, the percentage of lighting strikes they expect to catch?

I don't know that, but they are great questions for lightning researchers. The premier lightning research org (to my knowledge) is in New Mexico.

https://www.nmt.edu/research/organizations/langmuir.php

http://www.lightning.nmt.edu/nmt_lms/

Let us know what you find out!

Was talking to a vet, they claimed that most cases of herd's dying "from lightning" were botulism related or other poisonings. The herds graze together, and can die together.

Not always. We lost two horses to a lightning strike and if not for us being there at the time, we'd have had no idea why they died. They were both lying dead on the ground with a mouthful of grass and no signs of injury.

i feel like the common denominator between all four would be consumption of water (edit: well and the hike itself). My first suspicion is some kind of poisoning.

Canoeing and hiking away from habitation and livestock I regularly drink from lakes and streams without without worry or intestinal consequences so so far.

My doctor sister took a fright when I told her I make a point of bringing back water from glacial streams for mixing with single malts.

Similar case in Colorado 5 years ago:

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/07/28/father-and-son-were-k...

Canister stoves that produce a small amount of carbon monoxide have an unfortunate feature of making more CO with increasing altitude. Watch out: a stove in a tent that was perfectly fine at 5K feet becomes a source of CO at 8K feet.

If they were backpacking, I'd say carbon monoxide from a stove most likely. Otherwise maybe only lightning makes some sense. All this "toxic gasses" seems way too unlikely.

Is the hypothesis that there was toxic algae present in the water that the family presumably only filtered before drinking, not boiled?

In a few rare cases people and dogs have died from just swimming in water contaminated by toxic algae. So not intentionally drinking it, but it's easy to accidentally swallow a little bit.

Boiling doesn't help with cyanotoxins.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-11/documents/ha...

> CAN I BOIL MY WATER TO MAKE IT SAFE TO DRINK?

> No, boiling water will not remove cyanotoxins and may increase toxin levels.

Thank you for the information. Though, I do wonder: how can boiling increase the toxin levels? Or does it simply increase the concentration because some water has evaporated?

> Or does it simply increase the concentration because some water has evaporated?

Yes, this.

Will increasing the concentration matter? Obviously I know nothing on the subject, but drinking 10ml of poison in 100ml of water must be as harmful, and thus toxic, to me as 10ml of poison in 50ml water, right?

Or we're assuming they don't drink all the water, in which case 20ml of the first solution will be less toxic than 20ml of the second.

Higher concentration may mean higher rate of absorbtion. If detoxification happens at a constant rate, then a quicker accumulation of toxins may bring you over a threshold you would not’ve gone over had you consumed a poison of lower concentration.

You are seasoned drinker or scientist.

I need to drink 3-4 liters of water a day. That's fairly fixed. If I'm drinking water with twice the concentration, that's twice the poison.

I might be wrong but I don't think boiling would work for chemical toxins ether. Unless it's life and death you should avoid collecting drinking water from stagnant sources always look for flowing water. If you have to collect water try and collect it from deep bellow the surface and far from the bottom.

Is the idea behind this recommendation that these algae blooms have a harder time to grow on moving water? Or that moving water upstream will dilute any concentration of toxins?

Thanks!

Broadly speaking algea wants to be stationary. You see it floating on the surface in stagnant water, or sometimes attached to rocks in moving water. Dilution is also a factor, but if at all possible you want to avoid taking from anywhere with significant algea even if the water is flowing. Prominent algea likely indicates high level of agricultural runoff (maybe fertilizer, maybe manure).

If you have to and you can afford to spend ~$30 buy Aquamira. It's mainly advertised for reducing the oder of stored water, but it's also commonly used by backpackers to purify water. Anecdotally I've used it to drink stagnant water (when no better options, of course) repeatedly with no issues, whereas I and others I know have gotten sick from clean moving water we put through a filter (Sawyer squeeze). Aquamira is just a way to make bleach on the spot in the right concentration.

If you can't afford Aquamira or don't have access to an outdoors store that sells it you can get the same effect with household bleach. It's crucial you buy bleach that only contains chlorine, not any scents or additives (for example to make it thicker and stick to walls). See https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/making-water-safe...

AFAIK, neither bleach nor boiling help with cyanotoxins in the water from algea.

After more research it seems you're partly right. Depending on the PH of the water and the type of cyanotoxins bleach might not be effective. It is effective in some cases, but not reliably.

They simply have no time to accumulate in a moving water.

A water in the pond will be there for months.

Not entirely true. You can have toxic algea in moving water if the situation is bad enough. If you go hiking on agricultural land you'll see this.

How about distillation? There are emergency water-distillation kits that people bring on desert hikes. (I guess it would depend on whether the toxin forms an azeotrope with water.)

Drinking too much distilled water is bad for you because it is hypotonic (it's missing salts), so it pulls salts out of your cells.

I doubt they would have given a 1 year old water from a stream.

Hypothermia overnight may have taken the child if it was waiting for the parents to wake up.

It's so sad to even think that's a possibility :(

If they are "avid hikers" like the article suggests, they would have brought water. Also doesn't explain why the baby died (don't think you'd give a 1 year old stream water).

Being an "avid hiker" is open to interpretation nowadays. A lot of my coworkers would call themselves "avid hikers", but they only hike stuff like Mount Si and Lake 22. For those unfamiliar with Seattle area hikes, those 2 are way more crowded than city parks and are in no way risky for anyone less than grossly unhealthy. I've been on hikes with them and their preparation involves bringing a single nalgene of water. They had never heard of "the 10 essentials."

Did you mean little Si? Mt Si proper is a pretty tough hike with a scramble at the end that can be somewhat tough/dangerous depending on conditions.

It’s a train of people up Si with a slammed parking lot… I think that’s the point. It is difficult, but it is also highly pedestrian as far as trails go in WA. We are lucky to have such high standards here where even the most accessible and trafficked trails are incredible

> Also doesn't explain why the baby died (don't think you'd give a 1 year old stream water).

A one-year old is going to be heavily reliant on its parents actively taking care (in the short-term, most critically) in of hydration and heat management in the wilderness. If they are incapacitated by a toxin, that's quite plausibly fatal for the baby.

Avid hikers are more likely to travel light and source water on the way.

Me I’d rather lose a couple of kg of weight and carry it in water instead.

if the parents died, the baby would have died from exposure in pretty short time

Please, everybody, speculating about this very, very sad event is not helping anyone. Only the authorities can work out what happened. Let it alone, please.

Relax, it's just a discussion, one among countless other discussions around the world about all kinds of topics that may or may not be offensive to you.

Personally I find mysteries like this to be riveting. I'm sad about the family, anxious to find out what happened, and I'm interested in peoples' ideas here. Nothing wrong with that.

EDIT: I'm going to be really unhappy if this turns out to be poisoning by algae. That's a risk that I've never had to account for in life, and it's why I'm particularly interested in this incident.

It's not hurting anyone. Let people discuss things. I'm learning a lot, personally, and I'm sure others are as well.

I read the journal "Accidents in North American Mountaineering". I'm not a mountaineer much, but most of it applies to hiking. I don't read it to speculate on anything. I read it to learn from other peoples' mistakes.

A family went hiking and ended up dead. They made a mistake. So if I go hiking again, how can I avoid that particular mistake?

So tragic and heartbreaking. I read that they were doing an overnight hike in a remote part of Yosemite called Devil's Gulch. With a 1 year old? I love the outdoors too, but why take that kind of risk with a child?

> I read that they were doing an overnight hike

"The family's Sunday hike was intended to be just a daylong hike, which prompted concern from multiple family friends when they didn't come back home."

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/John-Gerrish-Ellen-Ch...

I read another article which mentioned "overnight hike". Thanks for clarifying that.

Toxic gases from a mine? Is this a joke?

On a day trip you bring enough water and some crackers / snacks and you are fine. On long hikes you can do filtration on the way, but a day hike not too bad to put the 2L camleback bladder in the daypack, I usually do a hard nalgene on the side if I'm hiking with others (always seems to get used).

Seriously, if you don't like drinking stream water, bring water. They even sell a 3L camelback.

https://www.rei.com/product/108365/camelbak-crux-3l-reservoi...

If you don't like the weight (longer overnight trips) amazing options these days in terms of water purification (vs what we used to do with the filter pump / boiling).

At least for me for a day trip 3L (2 in pack, 1 in bottle) has worked fine.

Now toxins from water would be very interesting - so be interesting to see what comes back from that testing.

Do they know how hot it was? A big brimmed hat on everyone does wonders in the heat. I see folks out with no hat, almost no water fairly often - Ok if you can stop and call for help, not so great if you don't have cell service.

No, it's not a joke

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gas-cloud-kills-...

Here's a singular example of hundreds of strange ways people have died from natural yet potentially hard to believe expulsions of toxic gases.

toxic gas is also a known natural hazard

https://i.imgur.com/F1Y2rbW.jpg

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