The Magnet In That Old Hunk of Wood - #5735
Friday, January 2, 2009
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It started out as a family adventure; it ended as a family tragedy. James Reddick took his 12-year-old son and his 11-year-old daughter on a hiking expedition up on Mount Rainier in Washington State. All of a sudden, a freak snowstorm arose. It created instant blizzard conditions and hurricane force winds. With a blinding 'white out' around them, they could not go any further. Dad knew they had to create some kind of shelter. All he could do was to cut out a large hole in the ground; he used a cup from their cooking kit to do it, and then he put his children in that hole and he covered it with a tarp. But the fierce winds just kept blowing the tarp away, and that left the children exposed to that deadly storm. The father tried everything he could find to hold down the tarp, but nothing worked. Finally, in one last desperate attempt to save his children, he actually lay across that hole himself to keep the snow from blowing in. Two days later, a search party noticed the edge of a backpack. They uncovered the hole and they found the two children alive and well. But first they uncovered their father who froze to death, protecting the ones he loved.