Decidedly Grim

The White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone

I actually got this book by accident. I meant to order The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis by Thomas Dormandy. Unsurprisingly, I put this book aside and ignored it for a few years to punish it for not being the book I wanted to read. Finally, running out of unread material, I rescued it from oblivion and took it with me as my in-flight read last month. And, apart from a couple of chapters that absolutely DARE you to skip them, it was a pretty interesting read.

The story centers on a group of mountaineering friends who, like all young men, think they’re invincible. In December 1969, they attempt to do something that had never been done before: climb Mt. Cleveland in Montana’s Glacier National Park in wintertime. Well, the reason it had never been done before is because the geography of Mt. Cleveland makes it an ideal avalanche zone. And I think you can probably guess from the title what happens.

The biography of each climber and the story of that fateful final climb is stretched out over the course of the book, intermingled with some interesting historical accounts of avalanche death and some less-than-interesting detailed analysis of various types of snow and what makes certain types more conducive to avalanches than others. Although I guess some of that stuff was kinda interesting: whenever we get snow that doesn’t stick together at all, I know to call it “sugar snow” and I know that a layer of sugar snow that is later covered over by additional snowfall is called “depth hoar” and is the ultimate avalanche-inducing nightmare for anyone journeying through the mountains. However, the author does go a bit too far in discussing the technical details of snow. I admit one chapter was nearly skipped in its entirety.

Still, this is a very good read for anyone interested in mountain tragedy. (And who isn’t?) Not as good as “Into Thin Air,” the masterpiece of this genre, but pretty interesting nonetheless. (4/5)

Library

Today’s Suffocating Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

During World War I, as the Austrians and Italians fought it out in the Tyrol Mountains, soldiers discovered the effectiveness of launching explosives onto the slopes above each other, bringing down avalanches that killed far more effectively than their weapons. Colin Fraser has estimated the loss of life from avalanches in the war to have been between 40,000 and 80,000. In one account of the Tyrolean campain, entitled Kampf über die Gletschern, (“Battle over the Glaciers”), and reported by Fraser, a soldier breathlessly exclaimed that “the White Death” had claimed countless victims in the mountains. “The snowy torrents are like the deep sea; they seldom return their victims alive. The bravest of the brave are covered by the heavy winding sheet of the avalanche. It is no glorious death at the hands of the enemy; I have seen the corpses. It is a pitiful way to die, a comfortless suffocation in an evil element.”

Culled from: The White Death

Which begs the question: what way to die during war is NOT a pitiful way to die?

Facts

Today’s Steep Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In 218 B.C., the Carthaginian general Hannibal left southern Spain with some 90,000 soldiers, 12,000 horsemen, and three dozen elephants, crossed France, and climbed into the Alps on his way to attack Rome during the Second Punic War. In the mountains, the elephants were placed at the front of the column; the belligerent Celts and Gauls who lived in the mountains reportedly “beheld these beasts with superstitious awe.” After defeating its foes in a number of terrible skirmishes, Hannibal’s army reached a pass on October 26; to cheer his depleted, exhausted troops, Hannibal exclaimed that they had “climbed the ramparts of Italy, nay, of Rome. What lies still for us to accomplish is not difficult.” The trouble was that the Alps on the way down toward Italy proved far steeper than on the way up from France. Worse, November storms had covered the glaciers with snow, concealing deadly crevasses and loading the steeper slopes with heavy blankets of snow. Although they encountered no enemies during their descent, thousands of soldiers and horses were lost to avalanches. By the time the army reached the plains on the eastern slope of the mountains, some 18,000 men, 2,000 horses, and several elephants were lost, as many as half of them to cold and avalanches.

Culled from: The White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone

Facts

It was such a dilemma for a daguerrotype photographer. Long exposures meant that the subjects needed to stay still while the image was captured, but kids are so damned squirmy. Solution: have the mother hold the kid… but hide her! Yeah, that’s the ticket! The creepy ticket!

Hidden Mother: Tintypes and Cabinets

Thanks to Katchaya for the link.

Art

Today’s Smoky Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Varig Flight 820 was a scheduled airline service from Galeão Airport, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Orly Airport, Paris, France. On 11 July 1973, the Boeing 707 made an emergency landing in a field in the Orly commune due to smoke in the cabin. The fire, smoke, and crash at the final part of the landing resulted in 123 deaths, with 12 survivors (11 crew, 1 passenger).

Flight 820′s problems began when a fire started in a rear lavatory. Crew members tried to contain the fire and smoke, but were unable to find the source of the problem. Prior to the forced landing, many of the passengers had already died of smoke inhalation.

The aircraft landed at a field 5km short of the runway, in a full-flap and gear down configuration. Only one passenger survived, while the major part of the crew left the plane by the emergency exit at the top of the cockpit. The captain of this flight, Gilberto Araujo da Silva, disappeared 30 January 1979 while flying Varig Cargo Boeing 707 PP-VLU over the Pacific Ocean.

As a possible cause of the fire was that the lavatory waste bin contents caught fire after a still lit cigarette was thrown into it, the FAA issued AD 74-08-09 requiring “installation of placards prohibiting smoking in the lavatory and disposal of cigarettes in the lavatory waste receptacles; establishment of a procedure to announce to airplane occupants that smoking is prohibited in the lavatories; installation of ashtrays at certain locations; and repetitive inspections to ensure that lavatory waste receptacle doors operate correctly”.

Culled from: Wikipedia

Facts

Today’s Ridiculous Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Excerpt from the Badger State Banner newspaper, January 23, 1890:

John Kuhni, charged with the murder of William Christian in the town of Primrose, December 12, 1888… pleaded guilty and was immediately sentenced to life imprisonment… [His] crime was the most atrocious ever committed in Dane County… About December 23, 1888, 2 boys while fishing found a sack in the water. They opened it and found… portions of a human body. It was found that Christian had been killed, his body cut in small pieces, part of the remains burned, part placed in a sack and thrown in a creek, and others packed in a valise and carried away by the murderer… In his confession… Kuhni says that he killed Christian because he ridiculed his religion and laughed at him for reading the Bible.

Culled from: My favorite book, Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy

Facts

Today’s Well-Timed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Timing played an important role in the death of English King George V (1865-1936). The announcement of his impending demise was recorded in the famous bulletin, ‘The life of the King is moving peacefully to its close,’ written on the back of a menu by his doctor, Lord Dawson. In 1968 it was revealed by Dawson’s biographer, Francis Watson, that the doctor had taken it upon himself to accelerate death with a lethal mixture of morphine and cocaine injected into the king’s jugular vein. Dawson had resorted to euthanasia not for the comfort of the king – since he was already comatose – but so as not further to exhaust the assembled onlookers. A second reason was also given: Dawson wished the announcement of George’s death to appear in the morning papers; laggardliness on the king’s part ran the risk of the news appearing less ‘appropriately’ in the ‘evening journals’.

Culled from: Death: A History Of Man’s Obsessions and Fears by Robert Wilkins

Facts

Today’s Clumsy Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

A 39-year-old woman was struck and killed by her own SUV in a central Miami-Dade parking garage. Arlene M. Allen, of Miramar, began to pull out of a parking space at Burger King’s corporate headquarters, 5505 Blue lagoon Dr., at about 6:20 p.m. on Thursday, September 8, 2011. While backing out, she hit a vehicle next to hers. Allen stopped and got out of her BMW SUV to check the damage, but the woman left her SUV in reverse with the driver’s door open. The SUV struck her. It continued to roll and hit two more vehicles before it stopped. The woman died in the parking lot.

Culled from: The Miami Herald
Generously submitted by: Mike Marano

Facts

If you’ve long-cursed your poor academic habits that prevented you from achieving your dream of cutting people open and removing body parts for a living, this game is for you!

Amateur Surgeon

Thanks to Twisted Princess for the link.

Mirth

The R-16 was the first successful intercontinental ballistic missile deployed by the Soviet Union. During development, a massive failure occurred on October 24, 1960, when a prototype rocket exploded on the pad killing over 100 personnel. The book Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin has a fascinating explanation of the accident, known as the “Nedelin Catastrophe,” which I shall share as…

Today’s Explosive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

As zero-hour approached, the missile began to drip nitric acid from its base. What does a cosmodrome commander do when a fully fuelled rocket springs a leak? He drains its fuel away carefully and then pumps non-flammable nitrogen through the tanks to get rid of any lingering vapours. Next day he might send in a couple of brave technicians in heavy fire-suits to ‘safe’ the rocket, so that it can be taken down and checked. Instead, Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin sent dozens of ground staff to the pad straight away, to see if they could tighten up some valves, stop the leaks, and get the R-16 up in the air. His instructions seemed so insane that the crews were at a loss how to proceed. In the firing blockhouse, the proper thing to do was to reset all the electronic sequencers and disarm them, before they could send any further ignition signals to the rocket. Nedelin ordered the firing sequences to be revised and delayed, but not cancelled. Somehow, a wrong command was transmitted to the R-16′s upper stage. Its engine fired, straight away burning a hole in the top of the stage beneath it. This lower stage exploded, instantly killing everyone on the gantry. With nothing to support it, the upper stage then crashed to the ground, spilling fuel and flame. The new tarmac aprons and roadways around the gantry melted in the heat, then caught fire. Ground staff fleeing for their lives were trapped in the viscous tar as it burned all around them. The conflagration spread for thousands of metres, a wave of fire engulfing everything and everyone in its path. More than 190 people were killed, including Nedelin, perched on his chair near the gantry, as a wall of blazing chemicals swept towards him.

Culled from: Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin

Of course, at the time of the accident, it was shrouded in complete secrecy. It was only after the fall of the communist regime in 1990 that the truth about this incident came to light, including a fascinating video of the disaster which can be found at SonicBomb.

I received a Kindle for Christmas and, much to my Luddite dismay, I am loving it. My first purchase was this book. I am almost finished and I will write a full review as soon as I’m done, but I must highly recommend it. The space race was a fascinating time in history, and Gagarin was one of its tragic casualties.

Facts