Sports FAIL

"Hey, Mike, we're gonna run the story about the guy hired by the basketball league. Make sure you put something appropriate in the background."



Actual picture featured (on the cover, no less) of Neurology Today, January 19, 2012.

February 2, 1959

A strange event happened 53 years ago today. And what makes it unusual is that the facts are well-documented. It's the "why?" that may never be known.





Kholat Syakhl is a mountain in the Ural range in Russia. The name is from the language of the local Mansi tribes, and means "Mountain of the Dead."

In early 1959, a group of 9 young men & women set out to ski-trek through the area. It was winter, but all were experienced, well-trained winter skiers. They carried plenty of supplies. All were students, or recent graduates, of Ural State Technical University. The leader of the group was 23 year-old Igor Dyatlov.



Igor Dyatlov


They carried cameras and diaries, which were eventually recovered. The pictures showed routine events in the trek, and were helpful afterward in trying to reconstruct times... up to a point.

They left Vizhai on January 27, 1959, and their pictures suggest the trip went well. They show a group clowning around and enjoying themselves.






On January 31 they climbed into a highland area, and near a clump of trees cached surplus food & equipment for the return leg of their trip.





On February 2 they began hiking through a mountain pass. Their original plan was to get through the area and camp on the opposite side that night, but snow had started to fall. With the visibility worse they headed west by mistake, going upwards on Kholat Syakhl.





They realized the mistake quickly, but by then darkness had started to set in. They decided to make camp in a clearing there, and cross the pass in the morning. They set up camp at around 5:00 p.m., had dinner, and were settled down for the night by 9:00. By all indications it was a fairly typical evening.




Setting up camp.


Dyatlov was planning to send a telegraph home when they returned to Vizhai, on February 12. When it didn't arrive there was little initial reaction, as treks of this sort were known to last a few extra days. But by February 20 enough people were concerned that the first search parties went out. Eventually the police were brought in, and used helicopters to search the area.

On February 26, searchers found their tent on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl. It was badly damaged, and curiously had been cut through from within. The entrance was still clasped closed from the inside.







Outside the ruined tent were footprints heading for the forest. Following them, searchers found the first 2 frozen bodies. Both were under a large tree, near the remains of a fire. They were men, both barefoot and wearing only underwear. Branches of the tree were broken off, and the mens' hands and feet were injured, suggesting they'd tried to climb it.

Three other bodies eventually turned up, spread out between the tent and the tree, in positions suggesting they were returning to the tent when they died. One was Dyatlov, clutching a large tree branch in one hand.

It had been -22°F (-30° C) that night, with blowing snow. Yet, something had happened that drove experienced skiers frantically out, nearly naked, into temperatures that they knew would be fatal in a short time. All were found to have died of hypothermia. Only one body had any sign of injury, a small, non-fatal, skull fracture.

The remaining 4 frozen bodies weren't found until the spring thaw, on May 4. They were in a stream bed a few hundred feet from the tree.

The autopsies of the last 4 added to the mystery. They were wearing more clothes than those found under the tree, but not nearly enough to handle the temperatures (most of the heavy clothing had been left in the remains of the tent). Only one had died of exposure. The other 3 from severe trauma: 1 had massive skull damage, the other 2 had suffered serious chest cavity injuries and broken ribs. One woman had her tongue completely torn out. None of the bodies had any signs of external wounds, and there was no superficial soft tissue damage. This suggested massive, sudden pressure to the affected areas (such as seen in high-speed car accidents).

Based on the amount of food in their stomachs, all had died 6-8 hours after their last meal (between 6:00-7:00 p.m. from the diaries).

All their clothing, and the tent, had varying levels of radiation on them (higher than the area's natural background).

So what happened?

The best that investigators in 1959, and again during a 2nd review of records in the 1990's, came up with is that a "compelling unknown force" occurred between 11:00 and midnight that night.

Something that made 9 highly-experienced winter skiers so desperate to get out of their tent that they cut through it from inside rather than unclasp the entrance, then ran into the freezing night wearing far less than they knew would be needed to survive the weather outside.

From the footprints they ran in all directions initially, then regrouped and built a fire under the tree. At that point they tried to share clothing for warmth (based on what different bodies were wearing). They were only 1500 feet from the tent and all of their supplies, but, because of whatever had happened, didn't want to go back.

At some point 2 of them died of exposure, which is likely when Dyatlov and 2 others headed back to the tent. They never made it.

In the next few hours the remaining 4 left the fire, and decided that heading farther into the forest was safer than going back to their supplies and the tent. During the night they reached a frozen stream bed, where something caused serious bodily injuries to 3 of them.

And the "compelling force?"

There were suspicions that local Mansi tribes had attacked the group, but no other footprints (human or animal), or even evidence of a struggle, were ever found. There was no evidence of gun or knife wounds. In addition, all their food and other supplies were untouched. Tribesmen would likely have taken anything of use. Animals, such as bears, would have eaten the exposed food in the tent (not to mention the bodies).

Some suggest they were startled by an avalanche, but there was no evidence of one, even minor, in the area.

Another theory (and still the most persistent) is that they were accidental victims of a Soviet secret weapons test in the area, though again, no evidence to confirm this has ever come to light, even with files re-opened in the 1990's.

Inevitably, UFO's are blamed. A group of hikers 32 miles south of Kholat Syakhl that night had reported seeing "orange spheres" in the sky. Similar sightings were also reported by a meteorological station in the area, before the disappearance of the hikers was known. But this is hardly enough to draw conclusions from. I, personally, am very skeptical of paranormal claims, UFO's, etc. And don't even get me started on cryptids.

The bottom line is that the "compelling unknown force" was known only to 9 people, and none came home to tell the tale.

After the incident the area was closed off for 3 years. Today it's named Dyatlov Pass, in memory of the group. Nothing unusual has happened there again.

Something took the lives of 9 young men and women 52 years ago today. It remains a complete mystery. And likely always will be.

Whatever

Dr. Grumpy: "Are you married?"

Mr. Necro: "Divorced, but I'm reconciling with my late wife."

Dr. Grumpy: "Um... do you mean your ex-wife?"

Mr. Necro: "Whatever."

Annie's desk, January 31st, 2012

Annie: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Annie."

Mr. Payne: "Yeah, the pill the doctor gave me makes me nauseous."

Annie: "Okay... In looking through your chart, I don't see that he prescribed any meds. In fact, you haven't been here in almost a year."

Mr. Payne: "My other doctor gave it to me last week."

Annie: "Then you need to call the doctor who prescribed it."

Mr. Payne: "What does that have to do with it?"

Sympathy

"It's not MY fault he had a heart attack! I've got things to do!"

Freudian script

Dr. Grumpy: "Hi, this is Dr. Grumpy, returning a page."

RalPh: "Hi, this is RalPh, the pharmacist over at local grocery. I'm calling about a script you wrote for Valerie Smith yesterday, for her Valium."

Dr. Grumpy: "Is there a problem? She gets it every month."

RalPh: "It's her name. You misspelled it."

Dr. Grumpy: "What did I write?"

RalPh: "Instead of Valerie Smith you wrote Valium Smith."

(pause)

Dr. Grumpy: "Holy crap. That's awesome."

RalPh: "Yeah, it took a while for the tech and I to stop laughing enough to call you."

Xenophobia FAIL!

Dr. Grumpy: "What were the pills?"

Mr. Skin: "I don't know. A friend brought them back from Argentina."

Dr. Grumpy: "Did you take them?"

Mr. Skin: "No, because I don't trust Mexicans."

Time

My Dad recently converted a bunch of 1950's home movies of he and my mom to digital, and I was showing them to the kids last night.

Marie watched silently for a few minutes, then said: "That's not grandma. That lady has black hair. Grandma's is gray."

Sunday reruns

I've got a junkie over in the ICU, who overdosed on a bunch of stuff yesterday. She was on a ventilator (a breathing machine) this morning, but they were going to see if she improved enough today to get her off it.

So I called over there a minute ago to talk to her nurse:

Dr. Grumpy: "How'd she do this morning?"

Nurse Icu: "She's more awake, and we got her off the ventilator, but may have to put her back on again."

Dr. Grumpy: "Why? Is she still having trouble breathing?"

Nurse Icu: "No, she's just a bitch."

My kids are jealous (hell, so am I!)

Okay, while I don't know Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, I have to respect what they did.

This pair of 17-year old guys, who live in Toronto, successfully launched a Lego figure into near-space (14 miles up) using a weather balloon, a lot of weekends, and costing about $400.

Just for fun.

They even sent 4 cameras and a GPS tracker with him, so they could film and recover him.

This is the movie they posted.





I'm thoroughly impressed guys. That's really cool.

"Uh, maybe we can sell them on Ebay..."

Yet another reminder that crime doesn't pay.

Thank you, Lee!

Maybe I should start using Old Spice

Mrs. Colostrum: "It's a burning pain on one side of my head. It's like... Doctor, you know what it feels like when you've been breastfeeding, and after the infant is done you have a burning pain in that nipple? Did you breastfeed when you had your kids?"

Dr. Grumpy: "No."

Drug company ads

There's nothing quite as manly as testosterone. Especially when you're rubbing it into your smelly armpits.

So does anyone else out there think this ad campaign:






Would be a helluva lot better if it featured the Old Spice Guy?





"Smell like a man, man."


Just wondering.

Family ties

Dr. Grumpy: "How are things going?"

Mrs. Xanax: "It's very stressful. My sister and I aren't speaking to each other right now."

Dr. Grumpy: "I'm sorry to hear that. Is this the one who's having a baby? Last time you were here you were knitting a blanket for her?"

Mrs. Xanax: "Yeah, but that's where it all started. I was going to have the blanket done when she got to 36 weeks, but then she had all kinds of complications, and had a seizure, and they had to deliver the baby at 29 weeks, and the blanket wasn't done by then. Now she just spends all her time at the hospital visiting the baby, and I finally called and told her that I wasn't happy about how she ruined my plans to have the blanket ready in time, and that it's not all about her."