March 18, 2024, 08:58:20 PM
Dyatlov Pass Forum

Author Topic: Can anyone explain the official explanation of a few months back?  (Read 9055 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

October 04, 2020, 08:09:33 PM
Read 9055 times
Offline

Investigator


There is no evidence of an avalanche yet they claim it's an avalanche?  Or do they actually cite something as being indicative of an avalanche?  To me, this is perhaps the worst of the nature-oriented explanations.  Now fear of an avalanche is different.  It certainly seemed like the group, or at least Igor, wanted to secure the "tent" quickly, but considering that the two tents were ripping open during much better weather conditions (and with the stove being used), and seeing how the wind comes down that mountainside like an avalanche of wind, I consider it really bad investigating not to try and recreate that situation, to see if the wind patterns there alone would be more than enough to explain the danger they faced by choosing that site to pitch the tent/tents.  If the wind was how I have seen it in documentaries and descriptions, their second huge mistake was spending so much time ripping branches off trees and trying to start and maintain a fire (I have read a large number of used matches were found around the area of the fire).  The "den" may have worked but those four walked off course then fell into a depression and onto the rocks that lined a creek or into the creek.  Doing a lot of work in light clothing means that when you stop you sweat, and if you sit next to a fire, the snow that is on your clothes or in your hair melts.  If the wind is still present or if the fire goes out, you are in deep trouble in terms of hypothermia, and some people are significantly more prone to hypothermia than others.  I know when I shoveled snow for a while, and then went inside, at normal room temperature, it felt like being in an oven and I couldn't take my jacket, gloves, etc. off too quickly (sweating started right away).  Instead, it may have been a lot better to take their blankets (if their heavy boots and coats were frozen up) and find a place that was protected from the wind, or dig one out, as some eventually tried, but falling into a depression/crevace is a major problem for mountain  climbers, though I can understand why they didn't think that would be an issue on a mountainside with a gentle slope.  They could have sat on some branches while huddling together and holding the blankets as a kind of makeshift tent.  One lone guy in a similar situation found a toboggan and some blankets and was able to survive using them, for example (in the book, "Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite").  The two Yuris may have died first because they sat down to start/tend fire, or one may have fallen off the large cedar and could not move much, so that's when core temperature can fall substantially within seconds (and some are much more prone to a quick drop than others, it has been learned since then).  This is the documentary; you can fast forward to 25:40 and then 42:00, but the rest is quite interesting too:

« Last Edit: October 05, 2020, 06:25:36 PM by Investigator »
 

October 11, 2020, 08:10:11 AM
Reply #1

eurocentric

Guest
When new to this tragedy you are corrupted into accepting a set of assumptions about what happened at the tent as though they were known facts. This despite much of it not making any sense, and some of it even defying the laws of time and physics.

Once programmed with this it then requires unlikely natural events or complex theories to explain what happened, and all that followed, including persistent, motiveless, superhuman attackers who leave no footprints, to yetis and UFOs. None of these theories ever explain everything; they uncover as many questions as they do answers, and all the while, the elephant-in-the-room, hypothermia, the cause of the demise of just about all other missing hikers in sub zero temperatures, or climbers who did not directly die from falls, is dismissed or ignored - because where's the 'mystery' in that.

Through a thousand copycat web sites, Youtube videos, blogs and articles, the sensationalistic journalese goes like this: "They cut their way out in panic and fled into sub zero temperatures dressed only in their underwear. Later bodies were found with horrific, unexplainable injuries, including broken rib cages, missing eyes and tongue, and some clothing was found to be highly radioactive".

The official story doesn't seem prepared to budge from that 61-year-old starting point. It continues to imagine there was some real or imminently perceived danger (the fear of an avalanche) which caused 9 hikers to cut/tear their way out of their tent in panic and run away, so much so they lost sight of their tent, in visibility they now claim to have calculated was down to a very precise 16m.

It's easy, or should be, to debunk it. Because regardless of line-of-sight visibility it should still have been possible for hikers to simply retrace their own footprints to relocate their tent, and an experienced group, had they run away, would know if they had travelled up or downhill, enough to have a stab at finding the tent, and yet they made no effort - no footprint evidence showed this.

The official story claims they set up their tent at 5pm, yet 2 photo's showed them digging a trench in daylight, and it was sundown at that time of year at 4:29pm - significant as this places them high on an exposed ridge without a source of heating (stove wasn't unpacked, tent ridge ropes not completed) or means of getting dry (chill from sweating) for far longer.

It's suggested snow collected on the tent and collapsed it before the recovery team arrived.  But snow cannot possibly collect on a cut open tent side, defying gravity, and we know windscour should blow freshly fallen snow off the other side at that exposed altitude. Igor's torch was found on top of 10cms of snow, on the tent, with only a few centimetres on top of the torch. The only logical conclusion to make is he placed it there, on top of snow placed on a tent they felled and covered with snow, the same clumpy-looking snow shown in the recovery photo which looks identical to the trench spoil around it, and being compacted this would not blow away.

I have seen you post about the tent/snow, but disagree with your otherwise logical conclusion that the hikers placed it there simply to pin down their tent overnight. Taken in isolation that works fine, but along with many other theories it becomes Whack-a-Mole when you then have to consider why they didn't first retrieve what they needed to survive, not just clothing, but one of the three axes when deciding to head to the woods to start a fire.

That is why I have them felling their tent and covering it with snow to stage it as abandoned, when seen by a helicopter Semyon appears to have photographed, and while laid down inside their trench, hiding away, they develop hypothermia, and this also then explains their bizarre method of egress.

9 hikers, or 7 inside if preferred, surely do not kneel inline and cut their way out in an emergency like that, if wishing to leave in the fastest way possible, if, for example, hearing loud expansion cracks in the ridge above them as night temperatures plummeted and believing an ice slip was imminent. It would be elbows everywhere, and surely the person nearest the flap, which rescuers did not confirm was found closed, would be better served cutting there. They'd all de-tension the canvas for the person next to them, slowing down their collective escape. All it required was one or two vertical cuts for 7 or 9 people to pile out of an 8ft long tent in seconds. Instead they made all manner of horizontal and vertical cuts and a series of stabbings at one end. 

This is why I have them laid down, canvas and snow above, in the dark, hypothermic brain fog/confusion setting in among the trench diggers who had stripped off some clothing to get dry, and then their means of leaving in order to get up and stand is more explainable, as does setting off without what they need. They would likely have already cut breather and observation holes and would expand upon these.

Even if they did all hack at an erect tent in a panic you'd still anticipate they'd be able to grab some survival gear on the way out, this being a compact space with everything inside highly organised. Things were literally 'to hand'. Even a man leaving a sinking ship can grab a life vest.

Finally we have this equally bizarre assembly of 'panicked' people 50 yards away. This is highly contradictory. If they are otherwise okay, not affected by hypothermia yet playing follow-my-leader down the pass, then they should do one of two things, either continue leaving in a disorganised manner if the perceived danger has not passed, or if the perceived danger has passed (or is then considered a false alarm) make some effort to return to the tent to retrieve what they needed to survive. There's no point fearing for your life enough to flee your source of shelter and warmth if you do not then take clothing for warmth and tools for preparing shelter/wood cutting elsewhere in outdoor temperatures which will otherwise kill you. You don't save your life and then commit suicide.

To me everything points to hypothermia developing on the ridge. All the bizarre behaviour and the forgetfulness. The better dressed were less affected, so took control. They did not flee in panic, it was the exact opposite, slowed down by the effects of the cold, including brain function. Igor waltzed off without his coat, his hat, his gloves, his shoes and his torch. And the moment nobody remembered to take an axe they were all near certainly dead, because without it they had to climb trees to cut thinner branches with knives, or tear them off at the growing point, and this could not sustain a big enough fire, led to exhaustion (critical in sub zero temperatures), and injuries. They'd only have knives, and matches, because they were already in their pockets.

The cracked ribs at the den are likely to be attempts at chest compression resuscitation. It just so happens the same ribs, 2 to 7, are the multiple fracture sites typical of just about every chest resus atttempt, as shown on numerous studies of cadavers at autopsy dating back 60 years, and women of any age (Lyuda) and older men (Semyon) are most prone due to osteoporosis. They would be attempting to restart the hearts, when people collapsed into Stage 3 hypothermia.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2020, 09:16:04 AM by eurocentric »
 

October 11, 2020, 12:24:00 PM
Reply #2
Offline

RidgeWatcher


Please forgive me but I am still of the opinion that the flail chest fractures acquired by Semyon and Lyuda would take much more force than falling 3-4 meters. The X-rays show a very wide impact area on both of them. You would need a 20mph (or more) of a hard flat impact. Semyon had a flail chest and then another set of fractured ribs further laterally to his right torso and this is quite a force.

Let us become more serious about the impacts necessary to cause flail chest.
 

October 13, 2020, 02:09:56 PM
Reply #3

eurocentric

Guest
I'll reply to flail chest being mentioned...

The most common cause of flail chest, away from mountains, is a road traffic accident, accounting for around 74% of cases. But up on the mountains falls and CPR would overwhelmingly be the major causes. It can also happen if kicked by an animal.

I am not someone who thinks a fall into the ravine could explain it alone, you'd anticipate broken clavicles as they put their hands out to break their falls, and the snow level was only half as high when they died as when their bodies were dug out months later.

Unless in some dead drop onto rocks, such as during a faint, I cannot see it.  There were certainly sufficient rocks in the ravine to do some damage, it's just a question of the dropping height and hiker weight needed to produce enough impact force, and to explain why the chest was the only fracture site in 2 falling individuals.

I personally think the bodies were placed in the ravine, and that explains their non-random arrangement, heads all to one end. It's possible some of the fractures, such as the single set on Lyuda's left side, were caused by her body being dropped or rolled into the ravine, the body falling onto its left side, but I think the double fractures to both her and Semyon's right sides are likely the result of resuscitation.

I read how a US court case once suggested, as evidence from an 'expert' witness, that flail chest did not occur in CPR. Multiple fractures, including bilateral, are the norm in chest compression resus (see graphic), but flail chest, two or more fractures on the same rib, was called into question.

It then required reseach into the veracity of this statement, and it was discovered, when referencing archives of numerous studies worldwide, that in fact the incidence of CPR causing flail chest is as high at 14.8%, though admittedly mainly in the elderly.

Graphic to show the incidence of bilateral rib fractures from CPR:



Semyon didn't have bilateral fractures. His fractures were confined to his right side (flail chest). His sternal fractures, perfectly centralised, are ideally placed for resus fractures, and especially on a man of his age, effectively generationally a lot 'older' than his 38 years circa 1959.

Once the sternal fractures have opened up and the CPR pressure continues the stress would travel down the longer part of the broken rib, and the stress would cause a bend fracture at the sides. The fractured end of bones would then be pushed into the internal organs, causing death. He then dies a "violent" death, but this is through the frantic efforts of his comrades to revive him, and he is otherwise already dead, or soon to be, from hypothermic collapse due to heart failure.

Lyuda had bilateral fractures. A single set of anterolateral fractures on her left side, and then the same as Semyon on her right side, though her sternal fractures were more away from the centre. Sternal fracture sites depend on where the hands are placed, and again, the stress would then travel to her right side and snap the same bones there.

Both their bodies should have displayed bruising from CPR, but because they were partly decomposed at the point of recovery there may not have been enough visible evidence - in Lyuda's case much of her chest skin tissues had sloughed away in running meltwater.

« Last Edit: October 16, 2020, 03:45:55 PM by eurocentric »
 

October 13, 2020, 02:34:14 PM
Reply #4
Offline

sarapuk

Case-Files Achievement Recipient
You mean the supposed official explanation. Well what is there to explain. The explanation is self evident.
DB
 

October 14, 2020, 10:23:59 AM
Reply #5
Offline

RidgeWatcher


Thank you Eurocentric,

I must agree with you and I stand corrected on Lyuda having the bilateral or double flail chest. It is the autopsy photos where I can't visualize any bruising on the outer skin. The photos do not convince me of a fall, dead or not. Would the university students perform CPR or a crude chest compression maneuver? I must be honest and admit that I have never seen flail chest after any length of time post-mortem at least that I can remember.
 

October 16, 2020, 03:26:28 PM
Reply #6

eurocentric

Guest
Thank you Eurocentric,

I must agree with you and I stand corrected on Lyuda having the bilateral or double flail chest. It is the autopsy photos where I can't visualize any bruising on the outer skin. The photos do not convince me of a fall, dead or not. Would the university students perform CPR or a crude chest compression maneuver? I must be honest and admit that I have never seen flail chest after any length of time post-mortem at least that I can remember.

I feel sure that some of them would have to know First Aid to be permitted to undertake a trek like this, and their previous ones too, that it would be part of their survivalist certifications. And with most of them being uni students they would also be up-to-date with new developments, one of which was CPR, which was introduced around the time of this tragedy (rolled out in 1960, but developed in 1958). Prior to that chest compressions were done, combined with lifting an arm to drain blood back into the heart with gravity.

Yuri D had a fluid around his mouth at autopsy, and this site reports: "The foamy grey fluid that was found on the right cheek of the deceased started the speculations that before death someone or something was pressing on his chest cavity. This forceful method was common for interrogation by the NKVD (Stalin's Secret Police) and Special Forces. The cause could also be a nasty fall from a tree. This aspect was ignored in the final papers, that read cause of death: hypothermia."

Equally, and while there were no rib fractures reported at his autopsy, it could have been the result of a brief attempt at resus. Even if the others said he was gone I can well imagine his ex girlfriend, Zina, not giving up immediately.

The way I see it is an accident, a fall (including from a tree), or a passing vehicle (!) would in probability terms be unlikely to severely damage only the ribs of two hikers and leave no other bone injuries, whereas the entire trauma area from the aggressive resuscitation of people who have collapsed is limited to their their chest wall, and this unique set of chest injuries, like they exhibited, is repeated through countless similar recorded examples the world over.

« Last Edit: October 17, 2020, 08:22:55 AM by eurocentric »
 

October 17, 2020, 12:35:22 PM
Reply #7
Offline

Investigator


eurocentric, I would agree that "brain fog" while in the tent, from hypothermia, is a strong possibility if they hadn't done as much work as they did after they left the tent (walking down the mountainside, starting a fire that was robust, ripping a whole lot of branches off the trees, digging out the "den," and taking the clothing off the "two Yuris" and putting those on themselves.  In the later stages of hypothermia, people tend to slow down and their minds "fog up," but we don't see that even after the two Yuris die!  Why didn't they grab any gear?  I think most of it was not usable at that point, for example, this is from "High Crimes" by Michael Kodas:

"At camp, in temperatures well below zero, they would strip naked outside their tent before climbing inside and starting their stoves in order to avoid filling the shelter with moist air that would saturate dry gear."

Weird things can happen to tents in those circumstances.  Their breathing could have iced up the inside of the tent so that after a couple hours they could have awoken to a thick sheet of ice on both the inside and outside of the cloth of the tent.  I think one of the more likely scenarios is that one of them woke up or one of the sentries noticed that the sides of the tent were solid and starting to crack open, probably near where the two tents were sewn together to make one, depending upon how the wind was striking that side of the tent.  At that point there was a sense that they needed to hurry to make sure it wasn't totally destroyed, starting with trying to knock the ice off, and that may have resulted in them accidentally cutting it here and there.  And then, after securing the tent (it was still intact when rescuers arrived), they apparently thought they could survive by doing what they did, though as I've said in other posts, the better plan might have been to take the blankets with them and find or dig out an area that was protected from the wind, then huddle together using the blankets to create a de facto tent (instead of using up time and energy with the fire idea), but at the time their thinking about this may have been common.  I would agree that their travail may have begun eariler than most believe; a reconstruction of the tent situation would not cost much and the results might be quite illuminating!
« Last Edit: October 17, 2020, 12:41:44 PM by Investigator »
 

October 21, 2020, 05:49:04 AM
Reply #8

eurocentric

Guest
Investigator, the descent down the pass took them away from the exposed ridge, and the forest would not only provide some shelter from windchill, and a large evergreen tree from the snowfall, but they managed to light a fire there, all of which would work towards improving their core temperatures.

But there is a price to pay for all this activity, and that is their energy levels, expending their blood sugars. Other groups in similar crisis may survive if they quickly found shelter and huddled together, conserving their energy, but this group travelled a mile down a rocky mountain pass in the dark, hunted for dry kindling, climbed trees, cut wood with knives, dug a den by hand, climbed more trees for fir foliage, likely attempted resuscitation, and finally three of them headed back to the tent, with one getting as far as halfway there.

These were lean Soviets in 1959, they had no body fat to burn, and once their own 'fuel' is down their livers would not continue to regulate their body temperatures to compensate for the environment they were in, the cold would make their kidneys shut down (no insulin or adrenaline), and their blood oxygen levels would fall from laboured breathing making everything exhausting - in the end Zina, Rustem and Igor would be crawling up the pass, back to square one in terms of where they started from and with hypothermia.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2020, 05:55:49 AM by eurocentric »
 

October 25, 2020, 07:20:50 PM
Reply #9
Offline

Investigator


eurocentri, I agree, and I have said somewhere in this forum, I'd also add that they probably did so much physical work, starting with securing the tent, that when they then sat down near the fire, they rapidly lost body temperature but they were likely rather wet from sweating and snow on their clothing melted.  I think they needed to go with the den type idea by itself, letting the two guys who were better dressed do the digging while the rest huddled together in the best place they could (the least windy) holding the blankets around themselves (of course they still could have fallen into that crevasse type feature above the creek).  It was a high risk trip, since they had little or no knowledge of the area, decided not to have any heat available that night, etc., and it doesn't seem all that uncommon, unfortunately.
 

February 18, 2022, 01:18:05 AM
Reply #10
Offline

Sunny


I agree with eurocentric that the 4 bodies may have been placed in the ravine after their deaths. But not maliciously. They were buried there by the other hikers, to avoid them having to see their dead friends laying all around that area where they were, and avoid birds and animals eating their eyes and bodies. They even may have agreed with eachothers that if I die, bury my body in snow temporarily. They perhaps thought that once someone of them gets safely back home, rescue workers will bring their bodies back home and bury them to graveyard.
I think the reason why they cut the tent was not necessarily an avalance but some amount of icy snow falling on top of the tent, causing it to collapse on top of them. They couldn't get out from tent by opening the buttoned door, cause the snow on top of them was so heavy, or maybe the buttons were frozen, it was too slow or difficult to try to open the door. So someone just cut the tent open, and  others did the same. The snow fell on top of the tent that had built right next to the tent over few hours because of strong wind and heavy snowing, and because they dig too deep hole for the tent when they were erecting it. There's a lot of snow seen in the picture also right in front of the tent doorway. It's blocking the doorway.
Only odd thing is why to bury the dead right next to the den? Maybe they didn't have energy to carry their bodies anyhere else. Or were these 4 trying to dig a second den but it collapsed on top of them? I mean all 7 or  9 can't fit inside that one den they had made.
If they indeed tried to give CPR to the dead friends, I wonder why? What would be the reason trying to revive a dead person right back to the same conditions that killed them. It seems a bit pointless. Well, they probably hoped to be rescued later.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2022, 01:41:22 AM by Sunny »
 

August 09, 2022, 11:43:54 AM
Reply #11
Offline

Philip


"including persistent, motiveless, superhuman attackers who leave no footprints" maybe something like this not only did it too get rid of (supernatural) frustration (like it is, for instance explained in the Bible) - but the mission was to create a mystery that millions of people spend their time on (in order to distract them from other, less supernatural crimes & killings)
 

August 09, 2022, 11:45:40 AM
Reply #12
Offline

Philip


At the moment, people are killed, for instance, by 5G, Geoengineering, Pesticides in their food. Someone obsessed to solve the riddle of the Dyatlov Pass will probably never get to know about these facts. For their tunnel view.
 

August 09, 2022, 11:53:04 AM
Reply #13
Offline

Philip


The supernatural frustration I meant (and that somehow reminds of this Dyatlov Pass Incident)

Matthew 8:32 "Go!" He told them. So they came out and went ...https://biblehub.com

And he said to them, “Go then!” They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned.
 

August 09, 2022, 05:51:02 PM
Reply #14
Offline

Ziljoe


The supernatural frustration I meant (and that somehow reminds of this Dyatlov Pass Incident)

Matthew 8:32 "Go!" He told them. So they came out and went ...https://biblehub.com

And he said to them, “Go then!” They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned.

Hi Phillip,

I don't fully understand the Bible quote, could you please expand ? I also don't know of deaths by 5g or geoengineering, I'd be happy to look at links if you have them!
 

October 17, 2022, 06:54:14 PM
Reply #15
Online

GlennM


A slab slip is a mini avalanche and its traces can be eliminated by ongoing gale force conditions. Other theories have far more entertainment value, but also require many more assumptions and explanations ( means, motive,opportunity). The official explanation essentially says the previously stated "unknown compelling force" was actually a localized natural event which precipitated all the rest of the tragic consequences. The forum will be active in perpetuity because everyone loves a good mystery.