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Buschow death: Who is to blame?
May 3, 2007
By Ed White
 While
on a wilderness-survival trip last summer in Utah, Dave Buschow went
roughly 10 hours without a drink in 100-degree heat. He finally
dropped dead of dehydration.
Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech
slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and
hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.
After going roughly 10 hours
without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of
thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a
cave with a pool of water.
But Buschow was no solitary soul,
lost and alone in the desert.
Dave Buschow poses in this 2005 photo
taken in Peterskill, N.Y., that was released
by his mother Pat Large on April 18, 2007.
He and 11 other hikers from various
walks of life were being led by expert guides on a
wilderness-survival adventure organized by a Colorado-based school,
designed to test their physical and mental toughness.
And the guides, as it turned out,
were carrying emergency water on that torrid summer day.
Buschow wasn't told that, and he
wasn't offered any.
The guides did not want him to fail
the $3,175 course. They wanted him to dig deep, push himself beyond
his known limits and make it to the cave on his own.
Nearly a year later, documents
obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information
Act reveal those and other previously undisclosed details of what
turned out to be a death march for Buschow.
They also raise questions about the
judgments and priorities of the guides at the Boulder Outdoor
Survival School. What matters more: the customer's welfare or the
quest?
"It was so needless. What a shame.
It didn't have to happen," said Ray Gardner, the Garfield County
sheriff's deputy who hiked 6 miles to recover Buschow's body. "They
had emergency water right there. I would have given him a drink."
 Family
members are still angry.
"Down in those canyons, it's like a
furnace," said Rob Buschow of Glen Spey, N.Y. "I don't have my
brother anymore because no one would give him water."
"Assumed the risk"
At her home in River Vale, N.J.,
Pat Large holds a photo of her with her son Dave Buschow. He was 29
years old when he died last summer in southern Utah. (AP / Mike
Derer)While regretting the tragedy, the school, known as BOSS, has
denied any negligence and instead blamed Buschow, saying the
security officer and former Air Force airman did not read course
materials, may have withheld health information and may have eaten
too heavily before leaving River Vale, N.J., for the grueling
course.
Noting that Buschow signed
liability waivers, the school said: "Mr. Buschow expressly assumed
the risk of serious injury or death prior to participating."
Garfield County authorities
declined to file charges, saying there was insufficient evidence
that the school acted with criminal negligence. The prosecutor said
participants knew they were taking a risk.
The U.S. Forest Service, however,
has barred BOSS from using Dixie National Forest for a portion of
the 28-day course this summer until it gets outside advice on
providing food and water.
The school - based in Boulder,
Colo. - dates to the late 1960s. In 1994, BOSS alumnus Josh
Bernstein, a New Yorker with an Ivy League education, took over
marketing and administration and later became owner. He also is host
of the History Channel's "Digging for the Truth," a show that takes
viewers on archaeological adventures around the world.
BOSS emphasizes personal growth
through adversity and using one's wits to survive. Its mantra: "Know
more, carry less."
During the nearly month-long
survival course, held 250 miles from Salt Lake City, campers are
required to hike for miles and drink what they can find from natural
sources.
Tents, matches, compasses, sleeping
bags, portable stoves, watches all have no role. Participants are
equipped with a knife, water cup, blanket and a poncho and are told
they could lose 20 pounds or more.
Among the things they learn is how
to catch fish with their hands and how to kill a sheep with a knife.
The course is intended to push
people "past those false limits your mind has set for your body."
Declared fit for program
Buschow had marched the Arctic
tundra in Greenland. And after leaving the Air Force, he worked
security at U.S. bases outside the country. He recalled his days as
The orientation area of Boulder
Outdoor Survival School in Boulder, Utah, is where participants are
taught how to survive. Dave Buschow of New Jersey, one of 12
participants in the 28-day course last July, collapsed and died of
dehydration. (AP / Douglas C. Pizac)a Boy Scout in his May 2006
application to BOSS. "Although in the years since, I have continued
to appreciate Mother Nature," he wrote by hand, "I still haven't
ever truly immersed myself in her embrace. I fear that I'm becoming
a 'comfort camper,' having never come close to looking her in the
eyes."
Buschow described himself as
5-foot-7 and about 180 pounds, with a resting pulse of 66. A New
York doctor checked a box declaring him fit for a survival program.
Buschow signed the application,
acknowledging that BOSS was not offering a "risk-free wilderness
experience."
The documents obtained by the AP
disclose Buschow's brief but bitter wilderness adventure: On July
16, he gathered here with the 11 others, including some from England
and a college student who had bicycled from Maine.
Most were in their 20s and 30s.
They ran 1½ miles so the staff could assess their
conditioning.Buschow "was not the most in-shape but not the most out
of shape," recalled camper Charlie DeTar, 25, the cross-country
bicyclist.
On the second day, after a cool
night, the group set out around sunrise and stopped about 8:30 a.m.
to dip their cups into Deer Creek in what turned out to be the only
water until evening.
Buschow pulled a bottle from his
pack but was warned by the staff not to fill it.
During the early phase of the
expedition, participants can drink water at the source only and
cannot carry it with them.
The group, led by three guides,
formed a loose chain, with stronger hikers ahead of people
struggling at the 6,000-foot elevation.
"We didn't cover all that much
distance, maybe 5 to 6 miles. We were moving slowly, a lot of up and
down," DeTar said in an interview from Vermont.
"You don't have food, you don't
have water, so you have to move at the slowest pace of the group."
They rested periodically under
piñons and junipers, all the while looking for signs of water, such
as green vegetation in canyon bottoms. At least two attempts to dig
for water failed.
In deep trouble
Not everyone had close contact with
Buschow, but a consensus emerges from the campers' written accounts
obtained by the AP: While cheerful, encouraging and coherent at
times, he was a man in deep trouble hours before he collapsed.
"We were all desperate for water,"
a camper wrote. "Every time (Buschow) would fall or lie down, it
took a huge amount of effort to pick him back up. His speech was
thick and his mouth swollen."
The sun was described as blazing,
inescapable.
Some people vomited that day,
including a man who got sick three times - a typical misery on the
rigorous course, according to BOSS.
Buschow was suffering from leg
cramps about 2:30 p.m. and said he was feeling "bad." During a
break, he mistook a tree for a person and said, "There she is."
"This was the first point at which
I became concerned, knowing that delirium happens when dehydration
becomes severe," a camper wrote.
By 7 p.m., as the sun descended and
temperatures cooled a bit, the group approached a cave in Cottonwood
Canyon, known to BOSS guides as a reliable source of water.
Buschow's companions were carrying
his possessions for him.
Within earshot of people
exhilarated about the pool of water, he collapsed for the last time.
"He said he could not go on," staff
member Shawn O'Neal wrote two days later in a statement ordered by
the Garfield County Sheriff's Office.
"I felt that he could make it this
short distance and told him he could do it, as I have seen many
students sore, dehydrated and saying 'can't' do something only to
find that they have strength beyond their conceived limits."
O'Neal didn't inform Buschow about
his emergency water.
"I wanted him to accomplish getting
to the water and the cave for rest," he wrote. "He asked me to go
get the water for him. I said I was not going to leave him. ...
Shortly thereafter, I had a bad feeling and turned to Dave and found
no sign of breathing."
A staff apprentice climbed to the
top of a dead juniper to get reception for a cellular call.
Five people took turns trying to
revive Buschow while red biting ants crawled over his face. A rescue
helicopter arrived about 90 minutes after he passed out, but a
defibrillator failed to jumpstart his heart.
Campers gathered in a circle for
the news: "Dave is dead."
They had a moment of silence and
ate almonds, sesame sticks and energy bars distributed by staff, the
first food since sandwiches more than 24 hours earlier.
Electrolyte imbalance
Buschow's death was caused by
dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, according to Dr. Edward Leis,
Utah's deputy chief medical examiner, who found no evidence of drugs
or other factors.
DeTar, a camper who performed CPR,
said no one was told that BOSS guides carried emergency water, but
"I heard it slosh" in a pack.
Bernstein, the school's owner,
agreed to answer questions only by e-mail.
He said BOSS instructors can give
water based on their assessment of a camper's needs.
"The group appeared to be within
the normal parameters we've seen on the trail over the years,"
Bernstein said. "... He seemed capable of completing the hike to
camp that evening."
In a Feb. 27 letter to the Forest
Service, Bernstein said Buschow may not have trained properly,
pointing to comments he made to another camper about drinking a
gallon of water a day and eating cheese steaks to bulk up before the
expedition.
His brother, Rob Buschow, said:
"It's sickening when they blame the victim."
After Buschow's death, five people
left the course. The six campers who completed the exercise returned
to the site to leave a bouquet of foliage and a marker of stones.
"I didn't want to have the fear of
the desert instilled in me because of this incident," DeTar said.
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