Bill Ewasko update (1 of 2): The Coroner's Report
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- A Sept. 2023 update to ADAM WALKS AROUND 47 & 48 (the first of two) about the disappearance of hiker Bill Ewasko in Joshua Tree National Park: Adam discusses the contents of the Coroner's Report, Tom Mahood's theory, and the significance of maps in Bill's disappearance. #missingperson #joshuatreenationalpark
ADAM WALKS AROUND Ep. 48 "Ewasko's Last Trail" Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/2J9wsJb8P1Y/v-deo.html
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I really think that the heat stroke/dehydration theory is much more likely than the injury. For a long time I couldn't imagine how someone could just "expire due to exposure". Then I overdid it one particularly hot day in Arches. I thought I was drinking enough water and I was doing a combination of riding in a car and trail hikes until Sunset. Turns out I was not hydrating well enough.
By sunset I started feeling a "little sick" and within hours I felt the worst headache/pain/nausea/weakness I had ever felt. We arrived at a hotel about 3 hours after sunset and I was barely able to move. Within an hour of that, everything was being eliminated from my body. My boyfriend bought some vitamin water from the hotel in a desperate attempt to restore something and I couldn't keep it down. We tried water and I vomited it up within 30 mins of drinking it. At one point I was standing in the bathroom and then I was on the tile floor. My boyfriend tried to pick me up (We later realized he was suffering similar, but milder symptoms otherwise I'm sure he would have rushed me to a hospital), but I refused to move because I was too weak and the tile was so cold.
I was extremely lucky that I was in a climate controlled room. My body temp got under control and at some point I was able to lift my phone and muster up enough brain power to door dash Pedialyte to our hotel room,. Thankfully, b that time I was able to keep liquids down. It took approximately two days after that, with rest in climate control and slowly alternating sipping water and Pedialyte before I felt somewhat recovered. I walked with a cane that I owned from a previous back injury during that time because I felt so unsteady.
I have been in one other situation where I over exerted myself without appropriate food or water. It was during a morning of skiing on extremely slushy snow. I felt myself weakening and barely made it to the bottom of the mountain. I couldn't move in my skis, so I took them off and walked in my boots ( which if you've ever walked in ski boots, is a lot of exercising muscles you aren't used to for walking). I had to stop to rest multiple times trying to walk the 500 or so feet to the lodge. I literally could not will myself to stand up and move without extensive breaks every 20-50ft or so.
My symptoms cleared up within an hour of being sat down at the lodge, getting some Gatorade and then some food once I felt I could keep it down.
I can 100% understand now how Bill, exposed to the elements as he was, with limited calories and water, could have been slowing down every hour, unable to muster the energy. Made the decision he did to take the shortest route, sat down and been literally unable to move again so heartbreakingly close to help.
Your theory sounds the most plausible based on what we know, and I believe Bill was one hell of a man who fought every second to survive.
Hi Adam, just a reminder that those jeep trails were laid all over JTNP by the USGS during a frantic attempt to properly map the area during 1942-3 in case of a defensive war against a possible japanese invasion.
The Battle of Stubbe Springs...I can see it now. Fascinating as always, Ric.
Having walked on the road this spring, knowing from your previous video that the trail itself was north of the road, I can see how he would have easily made that mistake. In addition, I lived in Carson City Nevada for 33 years and can attest to the fact that desert trails through that kind of desert are incredibly difficult to follow unless you are pretty familiar with the area to begin with. A friend and I got stuck in the desert mountains at the bottom of a ravine on a dead-end road that was not supposed to be dead-end one time in the early 1980's while out cutting scrub pines for firewood. But for the kindness of someone with a winch and chain who happened upon us, we would have spent the night in our pickup truck in the bottom of that ravine, or worse...
Interesting how you stress the federal policy change to “scrub” or “de-emphasize” the Jeep trails when that same policy priority had such an effect on the fate of “the Death Valley Germans” that had occurred before Bill was lost in JTNP. That family apparently saw a route on their park map that was not there.
That's very interesting. I should know that but did not.
@@karmafrog1 As I recall reading Tom’s theory on otherhand, the abandoned mining road thru Anvil Canyon was on one of the park maps the Germans had picked up. When their attempt to cross Mengel Pass in a minivan failed, they then attempted to return to the main valley road via a route that had been closed off for some time, never maintained, but not effectively blocked. The park service was following policy by returning the canyon to its natural state. No vehicles allowed but they had no way to stop determined people much less prevent anyone from getting old maps that, as you point out quite plausibly in Bill’s case at JTNP, could lead to a tragic end. The law can sure be full of unintended consequences.
Tom hooked me on his Death Valley search blog and I followed his and your attempts to find Bill, until he gave up and you found other things to do and places to be. I am glad he was finally found and reasonable answers are possible. I don’t like conspiracy mongering either. Plus, thanks to Tom, I learned to appreciate the value of Bayesian inference.
I for one greatly appreciate your YT updates, detail, speculations and analysis on this mystery story. The S&R work where I live has always been challenging in its own right, but it’s sure not the desert.
@@karmafrog1 Yep, there used to be a road marked on the map they had for Anvil Canyon, which is obviously more than just a wash nowadays, if I remember from Tom's blog.
Hmm, I think it's perfectly plausible that he thought "yay, I'm nearly there", sat down for a minute to rest, and then died of dehydration/exhaustion etc. I don't think you're necessarily wrong that it was a heart attack or something either, just that it's plausible either way. When you've been out that long, dehydrated and exhausted, all it takes is just closing your eyes for a second and that's it over. Either way, it's extremely tragic. But what an incredible man he must have been!
Yeah that's a really good point. I just find myself wondering if he would have gone that fast. Tom believes if he went through SWC he must have found water and thus survived. That depends on there being water, but we also know he had a lot. He probably didn't run out until Friday or perhaps early Saturday. But then, he was out in the heat exerting himself, and the desert can kill you fast without water. So, it could easily have gone down that way. It's not a very educated opinion on my part.
@@karmafrog1 personally, I don't think Bill found water in SWC. Speaking for myself, if I'd been in his position and I found a water source, I wouldn't have continued trying to walk out of the park at that point. I'd hang out by the water source for a few days in the hope that people would start looking for me. At least, that's assuming that there was enough water flowing to be able to rehydrate. With a signal mirror and a way to start fires to attract attention, I would rather wait than keep walking. But then again, I'm a lot less tough than Bill!
@@elinoirsmythe224 Oh that's a really good point. I hadn't thought of that. Although he'd be under cover there and invisible to search helicopters...but it also begs the question that if Bill was injured, why didn't he make that same move? I think if Tom were here he would say that it's because of a large dry waterfall between him and the spring that he couldn't make it up injured, and that would be a fair response.
@@karmafrog1 I think once I heard helicopters flying overhead then at that point I'd try to get out from under cover and into a visible position. But as you and Tom rightly point out, that's all dependent on being able bodied enough to scramble over the terrain.
Yep. I had a heart attack in September and didn't even know it. No pain, just extreme shortness of breath and extreme fatigue. I was just really tired and short of breath, and all I wanted was to go to bed and get some sleep. No chest pain, but it felt like I was trying to suck in full breaths through a soda straw. It was apparent to everyone but me that I wasn't thinking straight, likely due to hypoxia. My brain wasn't getting any oxygen, which is obvious now, but never crossed my mind then. My son said, "no, we'd better go over to the emergency room." Five days in the hospital showed me that I should not ignore warning signs, even if they don't exactly fit what you expect. If I had been alone and out in the middle of the desert, I probably would have laid down and gone to sleep...maybe the "Big" sleep, lol.
One unexpected thing to me, is the "Special Circumstances" box saying Possible Indigent / Indigent. Maybe it just means they found no cash in his wallet?
I also wonder whether the sticks/poles were brought onto the hike by him, or he scrounged around and found them while hiking (and possibly injured).
I expect to be out west around November, and again in April. I might revisit it, and hopefully by then will have figured out from my photos, how close I got to him in May 2018. If the photos don't let me pinpoint where I was, I'm sure I can retrace my steps. I can still visualize some of the rocks, nooks, and crannies I found. I guess my plan would be to retrace to where I had gone, then go from there to where Bill was found, and then see what those two places look like from each other, whether hidden by terrain/etc. I'm pretty sure I was close enough to see a backpack with 15x image stabilized binoculars, if I ever used them with a direct line of sight from anywhere I stopped to look around 360.
I will likely bring a precision Trimble GPS, if you want photos of what's at any coordinates.
I'm guessing "indigent" is one of those administrative definitions that don't mean much.
I think the hiking poles were something he brought, since there were two of them and they were obviously identified as poles.
Just be careful, of course, when you're out there. Good luck!
Adam thanks for the update! Since episode 48 gave a lot of thought to Covington Flat Road scenario and curious to hear what your thinking is in Part 2 Take care.
Should be up tomorrow. I have some refinements, deeper explanations about certain parts of it, and one interesting alternate scenario for how Bill got off the trail suggested by a commenter that had actually been up Quail Mountain. It has some interesting things going for it. Other than that, I don't have dramatic changes to my thinking, but a few subtle shifts.
Great view.
Thanks so much for making this -- looking forward to part 2. Perhaps this has been discussed elsewhere, but I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on how the helicopters and other search infrastructure might have affected Bill's situational awareness. I haven't been onsite, but I'd think that he'd see/hear helicopters over the search area (behind him) while making his way toward Park Road. I'd just be interested to hear your thoughts on whether you think this is possible and, if so, why he didn't shift course to head back toward the area experiencing more helicopter coverage.
I did have a lot of thoughts on this at one time, but it was a while ago, so I can't 100% vouch for my accuracy. IIRC the helicopters did scan the area near where Bill was found and there were search parties in Quail Springs Sunday - which is a lot of the reason I didn't figure out the phone pinged in Quail Wash for so long. I had thought if Bill was around there they would have found him, and I had also theorized he might be trying to get to high ground to flag down a 'copter. But apparently the helicopters and search parties weren't up and running until late Sunday afternoon going into evening by which time I'm afraid Bill was already immobile and likely had passed.
There's a lot of question about how Bill went wrong in the first place, with Tom and I having fairly different opinions on what's probable as I said in the video (and each of us, if we are honest, bringing our own set of experiential biases to the question). But where Bill wound up, coupled with the maps and (to me) the binoculars, tell a pretty clear story that he was following a straight line back to Park Road, and he wasn't focused on anything else. We're in agreement on that part.
@@karmafrog1 Thanks for your thoughts -- it seems that the more I learn about this, the more I want to understand the granular details. I was also wondering whether Bill's push for high ground at the end might have been related to flagging down a helicopter, but --as you say -- that doesn't sound too likely. I'm still pretty interested in the degree to which he may have been aware of any search efforts, and how/if that might have influenced him throughout his journey. For example, could the paths of any helicopters have gone over him on their way in and out of the search area (perhaps contributing to him choosing to follow a particular pathway out of the park, or maybe even choosing at the very end to push up to high ground)?
Thanks again for taking the time to put these videos together; while they do provide some 'closure' after my following this for many years, I find myself in increasing awe of what your theories are perhaps revealing about Bill's heroic efforts.
@@jimmurphy454 I think he was gone, or nearly so, by the time the helicopters were in the air. I did just notice, in doing research for part two of this follow up, that the horseback search parties passed very close to his remains - within 100 yards or so - but that was a couple of days after he had probably passed.
The one area where I think rescue efforts may have influenced Bill is why he would have headed for the Covington Flats trailheads, and then not immediately walked out from them. It's not the *only* reason (I'll get into the others in part 2), but Bill had every reason to expect that rangers would show up looking for him at one of those trailheads. He had no way of knowing his car would be missed for two days.
@@karmafrog1 It also appeared that Tom passed pretty close in his JT43 hike, appeared to be on the wrong side of the rocks/hill though.
@@stefanmanning8320 I think that's correct yeah
Slightly O/T, but what ultimately happened to Bill? By this I mean were his remains interred (presumably in Georgia), were they cremated, something else?
Some individuals who have followed this search for however many years may wish to visit his grave and/or place some flowers (if applicable).
It's a good question, I don't know.
Don't think he broke anything either. Wouldn't have been able to scale the dry waterfall.
Tom went out last week and checked it. He believes it's possible, with difficulty.
Bill would have had a lot of obstacles coming down Smith Water also. It would have been a VERY challenging feat.
All this time and it had not occurred to me that they might be able to recover any usage info from his cell phone. I do wonder if they tried to or what. Although, like with Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, it may just cause more sadness and uncertainty with no solid conclusions possible. Anyway, thanks for this and Rest in Peace Bill.
Yeah that's a really good point. It's not like the Kremers/Froon pictures cleared anything up, although they at least provided some data to mull over.
My personal opinion is it probably was not tried, but I have no evidence of that.