Conventional Wisdom
They found Brennan Hawkins, alive and pretty darn well:
"I turned a corner and there was a kid standing in the middle of the trail. He was all muddy and wet,'' from walking over wet ground, said Nunley, who dialed 911 on his cell phone and said he was lucky to find a signal.
"People say that the heavens are closed and God no longer answers prayers. We are here to unequivocally tell you that the heavens are not closed, prayers are answered and children come home,'' said Brennan's mother, Jody Hawkins.
The boy had seen some searchers on horseback but avoided them because he was scared, Nunley said. "He was a little delirious. I sat him down and gave him a little food.''
After downing bottles of water and eating all the granola bars carried by a group of volunteer searchers, the boy asked to play a video game on one rescuer's cell phone, the sheriff said.
In other words, a typical 11-year-old.
Here's the part I love:
The boy apparently eluded thousands of searchers by defying conventional wisdom: He went up instead of down.
Sheriff Dave Edmunds had said Brennan would have been more likely to head down a river valley from a 530-acre Boy Scout camp in the Uinta mountains.
"Typically children walk downhill, along the least path of resistance,'' he said. That possibility raised particular fears because the East Fork of the Bear River, which is normally ankle-deep, was swollen by heavy mountain snow melt.
However, Brennan had hiked some 600 feet higher and more than five miles into the mountains to the spot where searcher Forrest Nunley found him before noon Tuesday.
"Conventional wisdom. It's wrong so often, one might be forgiven for thinking convention isn't all that wise after all.
The "conventional wisdom" after an earthquake levels an urban area is that nobody will be alive in the rubble after three days. And yet nearly every major disaster yields example after example of people surviving well over a week.
Just saying - conventional wisdom needs the occasional whack upside the head. Glad Brennan Hawkins was able to supply the smack.
Posted by Mitch at
June 22, 2005 07:42 AM
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Back when I was around 10 or 11, myself and a friend of mine were hiking around Forestville State Park. We somehow lost the trail we were on, and got lost rather quickly. Our "conventional wisdom" at the time was to go up, rather than down, because in our minds, the higher we went, the better view we'd have and maybe be able to spot a familiar landmark. Lo and behold, we spotted a bridge in the distance, pointed our feet towards that, and found the trail again.
Oh, and we yelled for a help a lot, and probably peed ourselves a little bit, but I'm a little hazy on those kinds of details.
Posted by: Ryan at June 22, 2005 10:52 AMWell, the kid did everything we tell Scouts not to.
He moved from where he was when he discovered he was lost.
If he absolutely had to move, he moved up rather than down to follow water to a settlement.
He avoided rescuers rather than trying to attract attention.
Something tells me he isn't quite ready for the Wilderness Survival merit badge, but that his troop leader is probably going to work with him on that one next.
Conventional wisdom is conventional for just that reason: it is usually right. That's not to say that you shouldn't expect exceptions (like in this case where the kid did everything wrong), just that depending on them is foolish.
Posted by: nerdbert at June 22, 2005 02:40 PM