His wife was convinced that something bad had happened, because he'd never failed to come home on time. Her team got a report of an experienced climber who hadn't come home the previous day. The other traumatic story she told me that stood out, in my mind, was one that happened when she was a rookie. She told me, repeatedly, that she hopes the father is burning in hell as we speak. She said it was painfully obvious that the kid was terrified when he succumbed to hypothermia, and as a mother, it broke her heart. His face was twisted, and the tears were frozen on his cheeks. When she moved the coat to look at his face, she saw that he'd died crying. His arms were curled around them, and his head was tucked up in his coat. The kid was sitting upright, with his knees tucked up against his chest. She described, in detail, how as she got closer, she realized first that it was a child, second that they were deceased, and third that they had frozen in one of the most pitiful positions she's ever found a corpse in. She saw a figure sitting in the snow up ahead, and she got to it as quickly as possible. She said it had started to snow, just enough to obscure long-distance vision, but not enough to make searching impossible. They ended up finding the family with the help of some witnesses who saw them heading out into the wilderness, and she was the one to find the kid who'd frozen to death looking for help. Kid stopped to try and get warm, or maybe just to rest, and ended up freezing to death. K.D said the kid didn't make it more than half a mile before a storm overtook him. The uninjured child left his sibling behind and set out to find help. One had a broken leg and fractured ribs, the other was almost unharmed save for some bruising and a sprained ankle. One of the kids did as well, but the other two survived. They landed on the rocks at the bottom, and the parents died instantly. It gave way, and this family went ass over teakettle almost three hundred feet down a slope. They were snowshoeing, and as best K.D could figure, they'd walked onto a shelf of snow that looked solid, but actually wasn't. In one particularly nasty case, an entire family got wiped out because the father decided he knew better than the officials, and he took them out into an area that wasn't safe. They'd warned people about staying on the mapped areas, but of course there's always those who don't listen. They were getting about a foot of new snow every couple of days, and there were a few avalanches that killed some climbers. It was a bad year, she said, one of the worst on record as far as weather went. About five years ago, one of the parks she worked at had a string of disappearances. She shook her head and told me that really bad calls happen more frequently on the mountain, since the potential for nasty accidents is higher. The first she told me in response to my asking about her most traumatic calls. She was one of the more enthusiastic storytellers, and since we were together a fair amount during exercises, she ended up telling me about four that really stuck with me. She specializes in high elevation mountain rescues, and is widely considered one of the best in her field. D is a vet who's been an SAR officer for about fifteen years. I'll assign each batch of stories to the person who told them to me. Since I'm sure you guys have been waiting for these, I'll just get right into the stories. I didn't have anything too crazy happen while I was out there, but we did have one incident with a rookie that I found relevant. I'd love to put them all in one entry, but I just haven't had a chance to write them all down yet. I've got enough that I'm going to break them up into two parts, this being the first. Hey guys! I'm back from my training op, and I have a lot of really interesting stories to share with you.
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