Page 12 - AUA Traveller Aug 10
P. 12
Boy, 9, is
LONE SURVIVOR
in family desert hike
THE sun and heat are harsh in the at his side, Otero County Sheriff Benny son, aggravated
summer, and shade is nowhere to be House said. Though dehydrated, the a previous
found. But from all over, people come boy survived. But he might not have whose knee injury.
to admire the otherworldly beauty of made it were it not for a sheriff’s deputy name was She headed back to the trailhead
the wave-like white dunes and to hike a who was first called to help the child’s not given, was but made it only about 300 feet before
trail marked only by posts staked deep mother. with him. collapsing.
in the gypsum sand. “He wasn’t crying,” House The son and father continued walking
Hikers at the White Sands National The clue on a camera said, but “he was dehydrated and of for another 2,000 feet, unaware of the
Monument in New Mexico are warned Two park service employees on patrol course he was upset.” mother’s collapse, but the father grew
about the desert conditions and advised Tuesday discovered the mother delirious and “started to make some
to take many precautions. In the first, according to Marie Sauter, Overcome by the heat bad decisions for the child,” the sheriff
summer, those include drinking lots of superintendent of the White Sands The boy was taken to a hospital and said.
water -- a gallon a day is recommended National Monument. French consular officials were notified, “He kept telling the son that the vehicle
-- and resting frequently. Temperatures They called the Otero County Sheriff’s House said. But the boy didn’t speak is ‘right over here, right over here,’”
often top 100 degrees. Office, which sent deputies and English, so in the meantime the House said. He was disoriented, and
emergency responders, but 51-year-old sheriff’s office found an interpreter “the heat was affecting his judgment.”
That heat claimed the lives of a French Ornella Steiner already was dead. -- the mother of a deputy’s girlfriend, An autopsy on the parents isn’t back yet,
couple hiking the undulating dunes of “They were trying to figure out why who is fluent in French. House said, but the medical examiner
the Alkali Flat Trail with their 9-year- she was on the trail by herself,” Sheriff From what the boy told investigators, says their deaths appear heat-related.
old son. The mother and father were Benny House said. the sheriff said, the family got about a
both overcome by the temperature and mile and a half down the 4.6-mile-loop
died of heat-related illness, collapsing Looking at Steiner’s camera for clues, trail when the mother, who already
at different points along the trail, the the deputy saw photos of a man and wasn’t feeling well, tumbled and
local sheriff said. The mother turned boy at the park’s entrance. They were
back when she didn’t feel well and died unaccounted for, House said, so
on her way to the car. Unaware she had deputies then extended their search.
collapsed, the father and son continued Deputies found the father and son
on -- but the man, too, became about 45 minutes later, slightly off the
disoriented and then died with the boy trail. David Steiner, 42, was dead. The
12 INTERNATIONAL Monday, August 10 2015 - ARUBA TRAVELLER
