Followup to Dan Becker in the Grand Canyon: Near Death
BY Herschel Smith
1 year, 8 months ago
Here we discussed Dan Becker’s experience trying to do a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon in bad conditions (use of snow shoes) while climbing the North Rim. I was fairly hard on his team mates – they let him down by not stopping him and doing the things they needed to do (hydrate him, get food energy into him, get him rest, and most of all, stopping the physical exertion).
I feel that I was justified to be so hard on his team mates. Here is another video of the same trip told by Dan himself. Pay close attention to the 10:57 and 11:46 marks. He says, “I was having severe chest pains,” and when asked if he was okay, he said an unequivocal “no.” The rest of the team should have been with him the whole way. The first sign of a little bit of chest pain should have stopped the entire group.
That’s it for me. You don’t split up on the trail. You just don’t. Medical conditions of team members remain unknown to the rest of the team, you have less protection against predators, and so many other reasons. Don’t … split … up. If you’re going slower than you wanted to, tough. That’s all part of the being on a team. Deal with it.
Rather than picking up Dan’s backpack, the team should have stopped right then and there to assist Dan and get him healthy again. I’m willing to bet there would have been no need for rescue if they had done that.
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