HE NEEDS TO KNOW
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In 1986, a group of 20 – including 15 high school students – set out to climb Mount Hood in Oregon.
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The trip would end in disaster, with a PEOPLE article detailing what happened
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For days, some of the teenagers huddled in a self-made snow cave, some eventually succumbing to the frigid temperatures.
Even though the Weather Service predicted snow, the climb up Mount Hood was still underway. What’s more, it was a rite of passage — and part of a mandatory outdoor program called “Basecamp” — at the exclusive Episcopal school in Oregon in 1986 when 20 people (including 15 high school students) set out to climb the 11,245-foot peak.
Among the students was 15-year-old Richard Haeder, who, as a 1986 PEOPLE article details, appeared alarmed the day before the planned May hike. That’s when he called the school’s chaplain, the Rev. Thomas Goman (an experienced hiker who was among the hiking party) to express his concerns.
Goman, who has hiked Mount Hood 17 times, reassured the boy, his father told PEOPLE: “[Richard] he would have preferred not to go on the trip, but he didn’t feel he had a choice in the matter.”
Accompanying the students were Goman, the mother of a student, Dean of Students Marion Horwell and two guides: Dee Zduniak of Outward Bound and Ralph Summers.
AP Photo/Michael Hinsdale
Rescuers carry one of eight missing climbers from a helicopter after they were found in a snow cave May 16, 1986, on Mount Hood, Ore.
The teenagers, their guides and companions were ready to scale the south face of Mount Hood, the highest mountain in Oregon and the most frequently climbed peak in the world outside of Japan’s Mount Fuji. They would head to the warm lodge below if the weather turned bad.
As PEOPLE detailed, the Mount Hood climb was a final exam of sorts for students at the school, who learned survival skills as part of the “Basecamp” curriculum.
When the day came, PEOPLE writes, the teenagers each wore three pairs of socks and layers of clothing, bringing axes and sandwiches. No one, however, brought night gear or insulating blankets. Also, apparently no one heard that “at least four other groups in Portland have canceled their expeditions in the last three days due to weather reports,” according to the PEOPLE report.
So, on that spring Sunday, the group set off at 2am (the usual time for a day hike on the south side of the mountain).
AP Photo/Jack Smith
A helicopter takes off for Mount Hood as rescue efforts continue for students and staff at Oregon Episcopal School, May 15, 1986.
Less than an hour after leaving, the group encountered a heavy snow flurry, with six members of the party deciding to turn back (according to the school, second graders were given credit if they opted to descend after climbing 500 feet).
The six who headed to the lodge were told that the other members of the climbing group would join them by 6:00 p.m.
Some never did.
Members of the search party later determined that clouds had begun to envelop the summit of the mountain by 4 p.m., making visibility nearly impossible and forcing the remaining members to turn back when they were less than 100 feet from the summit.
Temperatures also dropped with the wind chill factor at about 50 degrees below zero.
Then: the snow.
When one of the boys began to succumb to hypothermia, the other members of the group spent two hours digging out a snow cave, then huddled around the boy in an effort to warm him.
As 17-year-old Molly Schula described it The Oregonian after: “People were shivering and shivering. When the boy’s temperature remained low, we decided to break in.”
The next morning, one of the guides, Ralph Summers, decided to head for help, with student Molly Schula in tow. A few hours later, the two found themselves at Mount Hood Meadows, a ski resort three miles southeast of the snow cave.
At that point, it had been 31 hours since the group first set out on the expedition, and a search team (complete with Sno-Cats and helicopters) had already begun scouring the mountain for the group.
Rescuers found nothing, the weather forcing even them to turn back for their own safety.
The next day, rescuers set out again and came across three frozen children: Erin O’Leary, Alison Litzen-berger and 15-year-old Eric Sandvik.
All three were rushed to Portland’s Emanuel Hospital, and, per PEOPLE, “doctors were able to start Eric’s heart and keep it beating for nearly four hours” before he was pronounced dead, while the other two were never revived.
The next day – by which time the group had spent 89 hours on the mountain – rescuers came across the snow cave – and inside it, eight people. Two of them (Brinton Clark and Giles Thompson, 16) were alive and moaning, but with slow heartbeats and low body temperatures.
As PEOPLE noted, efforts to remove each person were grueling, requiring seven men “to carry each climber over 700 feet of snow to a helicopter.”
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From a 1986 PEOPLE story: “Giles’ legs had to be amputated above the ankles, but both young men were given a good chance of recovery. Neither Susan McClave, 17, nor Patrick Mcginness, 15, showed vital signs when they arrived at University Hospital. Professor Marion Horwell, 39, of St. Hospital Richard Haeder and Reverend Goman were connected to machines heart-lung at Good Samaritan Hospital But it was too late at 10:53 p.m. and Father Tom died.
In all, nine of the hikers (including seven students) died, making the incident the second deadliest alpine accident in North American history.
As Haider’s father, Richard Haeder Sr., told PEOPLE at the time, “I’m heartbroken. It could have been avoided.”
The two surviving students, Brinton Clark and Giles Thompson, have since spoken about their experience at Willamette Week in 2004.
According to the publication, Clark spent six weeks in the hospital recovering, eventually returning to OES and later graduating from Stanford with a degree in human biology. She went on to serve in the Peace Corps in Ghana before attending medical school.
Thompson, meanwhile, had a tougher road to recovery. Doctors amputated both of his legs (one above the knee and one below) and removed muscle tissue from other parts of his body.
“After a few nights up there, I was unconscious,” Thompson told the media. “I don’t remember if I thought I was going to die. I just remember it was completely unreal. I don’t remember it crossing my mind.”
Read the original article on People