December 5, 2006
I have spent most of today halfheartedly working on the index that is due to be submitted tomorrow and obsessively refreshing news sites to see if James Kim has been found yet. For those of you not following this story, the Kim family was on a Thanksgiving road trip in the Pacific Northwest but didn't show up at work on Tuesday, at which point family and friends sounded the alarm and a massive rescue operation was mounted. The wife and two daughters (ages 4 years and 7 months) were found yesterday. They'd apparently got stranded in a snowdrift in last week's storm and had been surviving in the car for the past 9 days by intermittently running the heater and then by burning the tires. They ate Cheez Whiz and the mother breastfed both girls to keep them alive.
Anyway, the bad part is that the father, James Kim, left on Saturday morning to find help, and he is still missing. There are search crews complete with dogs, helicopters, and thermal imagery equipment, but so far all they've found is a pair of his pants. Nobody is clear on whether that is a bad or a good sign. The deputy sheriff in charge of the search thinks maybe Kim left them as an indicator of the direction he was going.
All I can think is this is a situation I can very easily envision my own family getting into. You pick up a tourist map that shows this scenic route, you don't realize that it's a treacherous barely-a-road that locals don't even like taking in high summer, much less a blowing snowstorm, you try to turn the car around when things get hairy, and then suddenly there you are in the middle of a mountain range in Oregon with no food, two small children, and cell phones that are completely out of range.
The only thing I believe I definitely would have done differently than this family is not let my husband out of my sight. If he wanted to go for help, fine, we pack up the kids and go with him. If he tried to leave anyway, I would throw myself at his ankles and hold on and not let him go. I cannot even imagine the hell of being stuck in the snow with no food, no water, and with my husband traipsing alone through the snowy wilderness.
I hope they find the guy soon.
Posted at December 5, 2006 6:50 PM
Posted by: Kristy at December 6, 2006 2:08 PM
Ok this was horrible horrible horrible. I got completely sucked into this one because I had watched kim's review of the disney mp3 player which because of how he talked about his own daughter liking it I decided to buy it for xander as his big gift this year. So so sad....
Lori f
Posted by: lori fowlkes at December 17, 2006 10:17 AM
I've been doing the exact same thing. I haven't seen any word on him today yet. :(
And I agree - no one leaves alone.
And yeah for breastfeeding!