A fascinating and scary look at terrible misfortune. Reading Mr. Osborne's story, I was reminded of a passage from Sebastian Junger's "Perfect Storm", discussing the tendency of steel boats to initially more resistant to trouble, but finally deteriorating with stunning rapidity:
"...the crisis curve starts out gradual and quickly becomes exponential. The more trouble she's in, the more trouble she's likely to get in, and the less capable she is of getting out of it, which is an acceleration of catastrophe that is almost impossible to reverse."
Mr. Osborne's story brings home with incredible clarity how quickly things can turn. At the time, I offered the uninformed opinion that they were in over their heads when they left the trailhead, and, while that may have been true in some respects, I am also not sure that I would have been any better prepared myself, or that, die cast, that they could have played things very differently. I can certainly remember times in my life when a series of small events seemed to be compounding into a much larger event, and that quickly leads one to the sobering thought that, there but for the grace of some power I clearly don't understand...
I appreciate the clarity of thought Mr. Osborne has about this incident, and hope the lessons learned might extend past communities like VFTT. I wish him Godspeed in his continued recovery.
