Today’s Buried Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Snow is mostly air – anywhere from over 95 percent in fresh, fluffy, undisturbed snow to 60 percent or less in the compacted snow of avalanche debris. A victim buried in an avalanche can suck in the air trapped between tiny snow particles – at least for a short while. This assumes, of course, that he or she had not been killed by the violent tumbling of the avalanche or slammed into trees or rocks or tossed over a cliff, that the churning snow has not clogged his or her air passages, and that the weight now piled on top of the victim has not constricted the chest too much to take in a breath. Even if the victim has survived all this and is breathing beneath the snow, asphyxiation is likely to come soon. Carbon dioxide from the lungs’ exhalations will saturate the area around the victim’s face, and he or she will begin to suffer from hypercapnia – excess carbon dioxide in the blood – as well as the lack of oxygen in the blood known as hypoxemia. Meanwhile, a thin mask of ice – a kind of alpine death mask – freezes near the mouth and nose due to the victim’s warm, moist exhalations, and blocks the airflow from the snow to the victim’s lungs.
The statistics of avalanche survival are daunting and precipitous: After fifteen minutes’ burial under the snow, the victim has a 92 percent probability of survival. Only twenty minutes later – after thirty-five minutes’ burial – that probability has plunged to 30 percent, and after a little more than two hours, the chances for survival are very slim, only 3 percent. Some very fortunate victims, however, have stretched the odds to incredible lengths. In 1955, a twenty-five-year-old Swedish hunter named Evert Stenmark survived burial in a small avalanche for eight days, having melted and carved out an air pocket, and subsisting on a diet of raw ptarmigan, ski wax, melt-water, and dwindling hope while search parties looked for him in vain. A big fan of movies, Stenmark had saved in his wallet every ticket stub of every movie he had ever attended. His brother finally spotted the red stub of a ticket from Stockholm’s Black Cat theater that Stenmark had extracted from his wallet, wired to a tree branch, he’d discovered beneath the snow, and poked above the surface.
Evert recovering after his ordeal.
Culled from: Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance
Prisoner Du Jour!
Prisoners: Murder, Mayhem, and Petit Larceny is a collection of seventy portraits of turn-of-the-century prisoners in the town of Marysville, California and the fascinating contemporary newspaper and prison accounts describing the crimes of which they were accused. The photos themselves are more fascinating than most of the crimes. There’s something magical about glass plate negatives that you just can’t reproduce with modern photography. And I think people just had more character back in the day – or at least it seems that way.
CHAS. RUSSELL
RUSSELL TRIES TO GO OVER WALL
FORGER HELD IN CITY PRISON MADE DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE TODAY.
Charles Russell, an inmate of the City Prison, made a desperate attempt this forenoon to regain his liberty and had climbed half way to the top of the walls surrounding the jail yard when he was detected and forced to come down and be confined in a cell.
Russell was arrested Saturday night for attempting to pass a forged check at several saloons. The check purported to be signed by C. T. Britton and was drawn on the Rideout Bank for $25. The bartenders approached refused to exchange cash for the slip of paper and the matter was reported to the police. Officers Single and Sayles arrested him and found on his person another check made out in the same manner, and still another blank that had not been filled out.
Russell was allowed in the jail yard this forenoon along with the other prisoners. About 11 o’clock Health Officer Hugh McGuire, who has his headquarters in the office of City Clerk Williams, went into the office and was surprised to see a man hanging to the bars of one of the windows overlooking the jail yard.
He immediately reported the matter to Officer Sayles who was on duty, and that officer accompanied by O. L. Meek went into the jail yard to investigate.
Russell was ordered down and his reply was “I will if you’ll get me a rope.”
While Mr. Meek stood guard Officer Sayles procured a rope with a hook on one end and threw one end up to Russell. He fastened the hook on a bar of the window and slid down the rope, after which he was locked up in a call.
On going to the Clerk’s office on the second floor, a hook that had been used by plumbers in fastening the waste pipes of the prison sewers to the walls was found on the window sill, and attached to it was a long strip of bedticking that has been torn from a mattress in one of the cells.
Russell had pulled the hook from the wall without any great effort, for it stuck only about an inch into the bricks, and, after tying the rope to it he had thrown the hook over a bar on the window and drawn himself up. His next step would have been to throw the hook to the top of the wall and climb to the roof, after which he could very easily make his way through the United States Hotel to the ground. He would probably have made a success of the job had not Mr. McGuire happened into the office at the opportune moment.
Other prisoners who have escaped from the City Prison have done so in the manner attempted by Russell.
The plumbers were certainly very careless to fasten the pipes in the prison in any such manner as they did. The hooks are of iron and large enough to go around a four inch cast iron pipe. The end that goes into the wall is very sharp and the hook makes an ugly weapon, with which a prisoner could easily take the life of an officer. Every one of the hooks should be removed immediately before there is some more startling piece of news to publish.
Russell was to be arraigned this afternoon on a charge of attempt to pass a fictitious check. [February 25, 1906]
FORGER GETS FIVE YEARS IN PRISON
Charles Russell, the debonair young man who tried unsuccessfully a few weeks ago to get several saloon keepers to cash a check for $25 to which the name “Britton” had been signed, pleaded guilty in the Superior Court this afternoon when arraigned on a charge of attempting to pass a forged check, and Judge McDaniel sentenced him to serve five years in the State prison.
Attorney J.E. Ebert appeared as counsel for the defendant, having been appointed by the Court, and found no grounds on which to base a defense, so advised his client to enter a plea of guilty and ask for the mercy of the Court.
Russell put up such a brave front after his arrest that he was expected to stand out and demand a trial. He seemed to think he had a chance to escape conviction, but his attorney could not see it that way. [March 12, 1906]
FOLSOM PRISON RECORD
DATE: March 13, 1906
COMMITMENT NO.: 6403
NAME: Russell, Charles
CRIME: Felony charge of attempting to pass a bad check
COUNTY: Yuba
TERM: 5 Years
NATIVITY: Nebraska
AGE: 20
OCCUPATION: Waiter
HEIGHT: 5’11 5/8″
COMPLEXION: Fair
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Blond
DISCHARGE DATE: October 13, 1909