A man who didn’t believe the cause of a family’s hiking death nearly died retracing their steps.
The Guardian reports that last August police recovered the bodies of Ellen Chung, 30, Jonathan Gerrish, 45, their 1-year-old daughter and their dog near a trail in California’s Sierra National Forest. Police ruled they died of extreme heat exhaustion and dehydration, as the temperature was 109 degrees that day.
But, leave it to conspiracy theorists to think something nefarious was afoot. Enter this unnamed Michigan man in his mid 60s, who traveled to California to find out the true cause of death. Prior to embarking on that same trail — which was closed, by the way — he told a fellow hiker he was going to personally investigate because he found the deaths “odd.”
Good thing he told someone where he was going — when that same hiker noticed the man’s car was still in the lot the next morning, he called authorities.
According to the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office, the man was located — alive — on the “Hites Cove Rd portion of the trail.” The conspiracy theorist was out of water and was suffering from “badly blistered feet and dehydration.”
The man reportedly lost sight of the trail and was unable to call for help because the area has zero cell reception. Once rescued and treated, he drove away against medical advice.
“It is hard not to be angry about this particular rescue mission,” said Sheriff Jeremy Briese. “To have someone purposely put themselves in danger, using vital resources and potentially putting the safety of our staff in danger all to try and prove us wrong, is maddening and quite frankly sickening.”
If a conspiracy leads you to risk your life for the sake of maybe finding the truth — maybe it’s better to stay home and argue with teenagers online.