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DYATLOV PASS [3]: DEATH AT THE CEDAR TREE
The Cedar Tree In The Lozva Valley, Where The Dyatlov Group Built A Bonfire, In Order To Prolong Their Lives.
On The Edge Of The Forest
"By now you've almost down the mountainside. Treading slowly through deep, soft snow ridgetop, the frigid air pressing against your tired body and sweat-soaked clothes. The exertion that warmed you now works against you: Your exercise-dilated capillaries carry the excess heat of your core to your skin, and your wet clothing dispels it rapidly into the night. The lack of insulating fat over your muscles, allows the cold to creep that much closer to your warm blood. Your temperature begins to plummet. Within 17 minutes, it reaches the normal 98.6. Then it slips below."
[Appropriated from: The Cold Hard Facts Of Freezing To Death By Peter Stark, 2004].
It would have been a painful descent to the forest line, through the thick snow, in a blizzard at minus 26 C, dazed and shocked and under the physical affects of electro magnetic radiation from the [orbs] fallen angels. Life would be cut short, for those group members who were the least adequately dressed, in this case that being Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, who were the first to die under the cedar tree.
The group began to suffer from cold, as soon as they cut their way out of the tent. Their skin temperature would have started to drop rapidly, as they each held onto one another, during the orderly descent to the treeline, the below freezing ice laden wind, biting into the bare flesh, of those without shoes, gloves, hats or outwear.
They get to the edge of the forest, but do not go further. They do not want to lose the hope, of returning to the tent completely, since many do not have all their outer layers on and some have no shoes. Group members, Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, who are very sparsely clad, start to experience the pain of hypothermia, even after they all pitched in together and made a fire, absorbing what they had just experieced and planning amongst each other, what to do now, most likely under the guidance and military knowledge, of members Igor Dyatlov and Semyon Zolotaryov.
Climbing The Cedar Tree
As hypothermia starts to set in, The two Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, who wear the least amount of clothing, struggle climb the cedar, in order to assist, in the breaking off of branches, to start the small fire, that they believe will save their lives, but it is with wet wood. They are unable to climb properly, due to hypothermia stiffening their limbs and early signs of frostbite, to their hands [fingers] and feet [toes]. Despite the wind on the edge of the treeline accelerating their condition, the two men climbed the tree, in order to remain aware of their environment and to keep moving to keep awake. But due to their fingers and toes ceasing up with frostbite, they were unable to hang on, with an ever increasingly inability, to be able to use their hands and feet. They struggled to remain in the tree, utilising the weight of their bodies, in order to help break down, the larger limbs. There was a sense of urgency [even panic] in this action. Working as a collective, everyone in the group pitched in, trying to collect as many twigs and branches in the darkness, in order to build the fire, as fast as they possibly could.
In regards to the those least well dressed, Yuri Krivonischenko, Yuri Doroshenko and Igor Dyatlov, they were working against time. "The freezing bites your flesh. Your skin temperature drops. Within a few seconds, the palms of your hands are a chilly. Instinctively, the web of surface capillaries on your hands constrict, sending blood coursing away from your skin and deeper into your torso. Your body is allowing your fingers and toes to chill, in order to keep its vital organs warm. noticing only that your fingers have numbed slightly. Even that little activity has been exhausting ...
The Cedar Tree That Krivonischenko and Doroshenko Climbed, In Order Break Down Branches, For The Fire.
... You know you should do more to stay awake, yet you're becoming too weary to feel any urgency. At 97 degrees, the muscles along your neck and shoulders tighten in what's known as pre-shivering muscle tone. Sensors have signaled the temperature control center in your hypothalamus, which in turn has ordered the constriction of the entire web of surface capillaries. Your hands and feet begin to ache with cold. Ignoring the pain, you climb the cedar, clawing at the bark and breaking down the branches. Without the fire, you are not going to make it. At 95, you've entered the zone of mild hypothermia. You're now trembling violently as your body attains its maximum shivering response, an involuntary condition, in which your muscles contract rapidly, to generate additional body heat. You fight for coordination."
[Appropriated from: The Cold Hard Facts Of Freezing To Death By Peter Stark, 2004].
The fire has been built and lit, but it is made up of small wet branches, requiring continual maintenance. It is not enough to keep the bare flesh of Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko warm. They burn their hands, legs and feet, trying to ward off the blackened, bloodless, dead tissue of creeping frostbite. Seeing the situation for what it is, and knowing his own life is forfeit, under these conditions, group leader, Igor Dyatlov, makes a decision, to head back to the tent. Rustem Slobodin and Zinaida Kolmogorova, volunteer to go with him, while the others remain behind, at the cedar tree. The three depart in the direction of the tent, hoping to follow their own footsteps, back up through the icy blowing darkness, of the mountain slope.
Once they leave, those remaining behind, see that they aren't going to make it, with the fire already beginning to dwindle, after only an hour or so. Semyon Zolotaryov suggests that they seek shelter from the wind, in the side of a ravine, that is located a short distance away, by making a den. Lyudmila Dubinina and Nikolai Thibeaux-Brignolles follow him, in order to assist, leaving Alexander Kolevatov, to watch over the fire with Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, who are no longer strong enough to search for and prepare a den. They are focused on trying to stay awake with the others, but they are drifting. The fire alone, wasn't enough to save them, from hypothermia, with ice against flesh, on a windswept treeline, at close to -30 C.
I have extracted [an edited version], the personal background information, on the individuals in group and the causes of their deaths, from The Dyatlov Pass website:
The Death of Yuri Krivonischenko
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Born on Feb. 7, 1935, Russian Federation. He studied construction and hydraulics in UPI University and graduated in 1959. He was known as the in-house court jester. He was always looking to amuse his friends with jokes or playing the mandolin. The mandolin that he took on the doomed hike, led by Dyatlov, was found back at the storage area, in the forest, where the skiers left provisions for their way back. Yuri Krivonischenko was just five days shy, of his 24th birthday, when he died of hypothermia, beneath the cedar tree. |
Yuri Krivonischenko (23) was found face down. He had bitten off a piece his own knuckle, [most likely to try and stay awake] and had 3rd degree burns, that can not be sustained, if you fall asleep still alive. [May have accidentally fallen, or rolled, into the fire and/ or may have [high likelihood] of having been 'burnt', by the fallen angels, when fleeing the tent.] Diffuse bleeding in the right temporal and occipital region, due to damage to temporalis muscle. His body wearing clothes, with traces of radioactivity. 3. Bruise around left temporal bone [tree fall], radiation on clothes.
"From somewhere far away in the immense, cold darkness, you hear a faint, insistent hum. Quickly it mushrooms into a ball of sound, like a planet rushing toward you, and then it becomes a stream of words.
A voice is calling your name. You don't want to open your eyes. You sense heat and light playing against your eyelids, but beneath their warm dance a chill wells up inside you from the sunless ocean bottoms and the farthest depths of space. You are too tired even to shiver. You want only to sleep."
[Appropriated from: The Cold Hard Facts Of Freezing To Death By Peter Stark, 2004].
The Death of Yuri Doroshenko
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Born on Jan. 29, 1938, Russian Federation. A student of radio engineering at UPI. He had an impulsive personality and was famous at the school’s hiking club for having run at a giant bear with a geologist’s hammer while on a camping trip. He was once involved in a relationship with Zina Kolmogorova and even met her parents in Kamensk-Urals. They broke up, but he kept a good relationship with her and Dyatlov. He was 21 years old when he died. |
Doroshenko had pulmonary oedema and pulmonary contusion as a result of blunt trauma; cases have significantly more urine in the bladder (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). The foamy grey fluid that was found on the right cheek of the deceased, started the speculations, that before death, someone or something, was pressing on his chest cavity. This forceful method was common for interrogation by the NKVD (Stalin's Secret Police) and Special Forces. The cause could also be a nasty fall from a tree. This aspect was ignored in the final papers, that read cause of death: hypothermia.
While Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko had minor damage to the head and chest, these were very different injuries to many the others, who were hit by the fallen angels [an unknown elemental force] and smashed in the skulls, by the manifesting 'Bigfoot' entity. I believe that the "diffuse bleeding in the right temporal and occipital region, due to damage to temporalis muscle" sustained by Yuri Krivonischenko, was a result of stressors, such as falling against the tree, a stone concealed beneath the snow, tension and/ or constriction of the muscle, due to the blast of icy wind, from the blizzard, as the group made their way down the side of the mountain and that the "pulmonary oedema and pulmonary contusion" sustained by Yuri Doroshenko, was the result of falling out [perhaps twice], of the cedar tree.
Reports say, that they were both face down, but someone turned one of them over.
"The medical examiner recorded that some of the corpses had livor mortis on the front. Given that such marks always form on the side of a body that has been pressed against the ground, this indicated that someone had turned them over after death." [Dyatlov Pass: http://dyatlov-pass.com/page.php?language_id=1&id=12786]
The deaths of Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, beneath the cedar tree, must have been awful. I especially think of Zinaida, who had recently come out of a relationship with Yuri Doroshenko and Lyudmila, who was said to have a particular fondness for her friend, Yuri Krivonischenko. Close to naked and close by, to at least, some of their hiking companions, with the small failing fire of wet tree branches, not enough to warm their bare flesh, Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko would have entered further and further into delerium, as their bodies closed down, even with Alexander Kolevatov left behind to urge them on. They may have had difficulty speaking, been sluggish in their thinking. The exposed skin would start to take on a blue tinge. Muscle coordination would be very poor and walking almost impossible.
While these were all hardened hikers and mountaineers, with two of them, Igor Dyatlov and Semyon Zolotaryov, having military training, eight out of nine of the group, were only in their early twenties. They were young adults, most likely still living with their families, at the very beginning of their adult lives [and dreams], now doing the best that they possibly could, in order to survive, under the extraordinary circumstances, that had been suddenly thrust upon them, by an unimaginable non-human evil, who was hell bent, on their physical death and eternal annihilation.
Bad luck to those who fell asleep by a campfire!
Hypothermia has played a major role, in the success or failure of many military campaigns, from Hannibal's loss of nearly half his men in the Second Punic War (218 B.C.) to the near destruction of Napoleon's armies in Russia in 1812. Men wandered around confused by hypothermia, some lost consciousness and died, others shivered, later developed torpor, and tended to sleep. Others too weak to walk fell on their knees; some stayed that way some time resisting death. The pulse of some was weak and hard to detect; others groaned; yet others had eyes open and wild with quiet delirium.[73] Loss of life to hypothermia in Russian regions continued through the first and second world wars, especially in the Battle of Stalingrad.[74] The most devastating effect of the cold weather upon Napoleon's forces occurred during their retreat. Hypothermia coupled with starvation led to the loss of thousands. In his memoir, Napoleon's close adviser Armand de Caulaincourt recounted scenes of massive loss, and offered a vivid description, of mass death through hypothermia:
The cold was so intense that bivouacking was no longer supportable. Bad luck to those who fell asleep by a campfire! Furthermore, disorganization was perceptibly gaining ground in the Guard. One constantly found men who, overcome by the cold, had been forced to drop out and had fallen to the ground, too weak or too numb to stand. Ought one to help them along – which practically meant carrying them? They begged one to let them alone. There were bivouacs all along the road – ought one to take them to a campfire? Once these poor wretches fell asleep they were dead. If they resisted the craving for sleep, another passer by would help them along a little farther, thus prolonging their agony for a short while, but not saving them, for in this condition the drowsiness engendered by cold is irresistibly strong. Sleep comes inevitably, and to sleep is to die. I tried in vain to save a number of these unfortunates. The only words they uttered were to beg me, for the love of God, to go away and let them sleep. To hear them, one would have thought sleep was their salvation. Unhappily, it was a poor wretch's last wish. But at least he ceased to suffer, without pain or agony. Gratitude, and even a smile, was imprinted on his discoloured lips. What I have related about the effects of extreme cold, and of this kind of death by freezing, is based on what I saw happen to thousands of individuals. The road was covered with their corpses. [Excerpt from: —Caulaincourt[82] French invasion of Russia,[From Wikipedia, the free [fallen angel controlled] encyclopedia]
Summary Of Story By Jack London 'To Build A Fire'
In 'To Build A Fire', by Jack London, at 9:00am on an extremely cold winter morning (-59 C), an unnamed man leaves the Yukon Trail, expecting to meet his associates ("the boys"), at a mining claim by 6:00 that evening. The man is accompanied only by a large husky dog, whose instincts tell it that the weather is too cold for traveling. However, the weather does not deter the man, a relative newcomer to the Yukon, even though the water vapor in the man's exhaled breaths and the saliva from the tobacco he is chewing have frozen his mouth shut. As he hikes along a creek, he takes care to avoid pockets of unfrozen water, hidden beneath thin layers of ice. He stops to build a fire and thaw out, so he can eat his lunch, but after he begins hiking again, he breaks through the ice and soaks his feet and lower legs.
More angry over the accident, than concerned for his own safety, the man builds a fire under a tree, to dry his clothes as sensation begins to fade from his extremities. The snow from the tree's loaded boughs eventually tumbles down, extinguishing the fire and frightening the man for the first time. He gathers materials for a new fire and lights it with great difficulty, burning himself with his matches in the process, but accidentally pokes it apart while trying to remove a piece of moss ... In a final desperate attempt to warm himself up, the man tries to run along the trail but repeatedly stumbles and falls. Finally understanding the truth of the local residents' warnings about the cold, the man succumbs to hypothermia and dies, imagining himself to be with "the boys", as they find his body the next day. The dog watches the man's body for some time, not understanding why he is not moving, nor building a fire. When it realizes that he is dead, it hurries off along the trail, toward a campsite, where other men can provide fire and food. This is how the story ends.
The Decision To Split The Group
But it does not end this way for the Dyatlov group. After being exposed to a dose of radiation and the first signs of hypothermia, the remaining four hikers, Semyon Zolotaryov, Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Kolevatov and Nikolai Thibeaux-Brignolles are left with a fire, that is all but out and the very real prospect, of ending the same way as their companions. Some of the less well dressed, are already starting to feel the affects of frostbite, as the blood abandons the exposed flesh of fingers and toes.
Decisions have to be made quickly. They must keep moving and improving upon their situation in order to survive, at least until the sun rises. They cut clothes from the bodies of Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, who are still huddled inches from the fire beneath the cedar tree, "their flesh frozen solid. The flesh of his limbs is waxy and stiff as old putty, his pulse non-existent, his pupils unresponsive to light. In the icey darkness, they huddle together, as silence closes in around them. For a moment, the several of them imagine, they can hear the malevolent breathing of a creature, that has taken cover, this frigid night, beneath the thick quilt of snow."
[Appropriated from: The Cold Hard Facts Of Freezing To Death By Peter Stark, 2004]
This is what the Dyatlov group did, after there nothing they could do, to keep their friends Yuri Krivonischenko, Yuri Doroshenko, awake and alive. They know that to stay by the unstable and dwindling fire, of damp wood in a strong wind, was going to end their lives one by one, with some being more sparsely dressed than others. So a decision was made, to gently place their comrades, Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko, side by side. Clothes were cut from their bodies, to wear in the den and to be used as markers, on the trees and in the snow, to assist the others in finding them, upon their swift return. So it was, that their thoughts turned to Igor Dyatlov, Zinaida Kolmogorova and Rustem Slobodin, who had set off in the darkness together, in single file, with Rustem in the lead, Zinaida in the middle and Dyatlov to the rear.
The Four Distraught Hikers Leave Their Dead Friends, By The Ashes Of A Fire, For The Shelter Of A Den. |
