Two More Outback Deaths

News article here with some detail Outback Deaths

Sad isnt it.. but what no HF? No Sat Phone? No comms of any form? could have saved a life...



Another copy of the story.

Waterless couple die in desert
January 14, 2008 - 6:13PM

A married couple who died in the Central Australian outback used the last of their water on a leaking car radiator, the sole survivor of the tragedy has told police.

The elderly man was found last night wandering alongside a remote road about 100km from Nyrippi, west of Alice Springs.

A ground search had been mounted to find the man and his two companions after a report was made to police about 9pm (CST) on Sunday that an overdue party was missing after setting off from the Aboriginal community of Kintore.

The man, believed to be aged between 60 and 70, told police that the Pajero station wagon they had been travelling in broke down 116km from Nyirripi two days earlier.

The group then ran out of water after using it to fill up a leaking radiator, he said.

Last night police found the car a few kilometres further along the road but there was no sign of the couple.

Lights and sirens were used to try to attract the missing pair as the search team slowly travelled back to the community, leaving water bottles along the way.

Police said they resumed their search at first light today and eventually came across the 31-year-old woman, barely alive, by the side of the road.

Her tracks led to the body of her 34-year-old husband who had died about 90 metres from a dry waterhole.

The woman was taken to the Nyrippi Health Clinic where she was pronounced dead at 11.30am (CST) today.

Detectives were preparing a report for the coroner and a post mortem examination on the couple will be conducted in Alice Springs tomorrow.

AAP

Loss of life in such circumstances just goes to show how unforgiving and merciless this country can be. Many people, even some locals, have regularly underestimated the ferocity of the sun and temperatures and the risks they take by travelling at the wrong time of the year, often completely unprepared. A timely wake-up call for everyone.

Yep - its crook alright, and you would do anything to prevent it if you could ...........but the question that always arises "in these cases" is "how well prepared were these seeming 'locals' for this type of journey ?".
At least overseas tourists (and our unsuspecting city types) that sometimes perish out there have unfamiliarity as a partial excuse.