Confederate Sharpshooter

This is why I keep trying to encourage people to be prepared:

(via Drudge)

Las Vegas Boy Dies After Getting Stranded in Death Valley
Updated: Aug 07, 2009 2:54 PM EDT
An 11-year-old Las Vegas boy died after his mother's car got stuck in sand for five days on their way to Death Valley for a camping trip, officials said Friday.

Carlos Sanchez and his 28-year-old mother set out for an overnight trip to the area Aug. 1, but were stranded when their car got stuck about 20 miles east of Trona. The mother's name has not been released.

The mother hiked to the top of a tall peak to try to get a cell phone signal but could not, officials said. The pair had no maps and quickly consumed the 24 16-oz. bottles of water, Pop Tarts and cheese sandwiches they had packed.

The vehicle was found several miles off a dirt road in the middle of the desert and apparently got stuck when it drove over an underground coyote den and the soil collapsed, Lotspeich said.

The severely dehydrated mother was airlifted to Sunrise Medical Center in Las Vegas. Her condition was not immediately known.

Cell phones, GPS units, and other modern tools are all nice things to have. But they can, and do, fail. A few bottles of water and some pop tarts aren't exactly my idea of enough gear to cross the notorious valley of death, to put it mildly.

As has been said many times before, the most important survival tool you have is between your ears. Use it.

My heart goes out to any mother who loses her child. More so when that mother will live out her life wondering what she could have done to have prevented that death. As for the rest of us, we need to learn from her mistakes, and try very hard to avoid making them ourselves.