Saturday, May 08, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Red Rock Canyon hiker found after five days

But woman's condition raises doubts about her account of ordeal

Christine Asleson cheers after she arrives in an ambulance at University Medical Center after being rescued Friday. Asleson, 46, told rescuers she survived without water by eating flowers, crouching in the shade and rubbing dirt on herself to keep cool. Photo by Jeff Scheid.

Rescuers and family members celebrated Friday's safe return of a woman lost in Red Rock Canyon since Sunday, but authorities are questioning her account of the five-day ordeal in the wilderness.

Christine Asleson, 46, told rescuers she survived without water by eating flowers, crouching in the shade and rubbing dirt on herself to keep cool in the 90-degree-plus temperatures.

Las Vegas police officially called off their search Thursday evening. Asleson was found about 10 a.m. Friday when a search volunteer heard her shouting from a cliff only a short distance from the area where police, the missing hiker's friends and family and other volunteers were based during the search.

She was airlifted from the cliff and transported by ambulance to University Medical Center, where the man in charge of the search said she was found to be in suspiciously good physical condition.

"Her story of where she's been for the past five days is highly suspect," said Sgt. Clint Bassett, search and rescue coordinator. "Her medical condition is not conducive to someone who has been in the wilderness. She's been eating and drinking regular. She's in great shape.

"There's more to this story. We just don't know what it is yet."

Other police officials didn't echo Bassett's skepticism, however. Department spokesman Rick Barela and Capt. Terry Lesney, who oversees the department's Missing Persons Bureau, said it's too early to know whether Asleson's account is accurate.

Missing Persons detectives plan to interview her, Lesney said.

"We have no reason to discredit her at this point," Lesney said. "A lot more will be resolved after we have a chance to interview her."

Asleson was in fair condition Friday at UMC, where she was expected to be kept overnight for observation.

A call to her hospital room went unanswered late Friday afternoon. Her family members could not be reached to respond to Bassett's comments.

Dozens of volunteers, some of them with no ties to Asleson, had been scouring parts of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area since Monday. Leading the group was Asleson's son, Jason Caudill, his friends, and some of Asleson's relatives, including a few who traveled from California to join the search.

As they hiked along the First Creek trail and the rugged hills around Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, police on horseback crisscrossed the desert around them and a search and rescue helicopter flew overhead.

Bassett said the area where Asleson was discovered had been searched seven times, most recently on Thursday afternoon, when it was buzzed by a helicopter with six people on board.

Earlier Thursday, Bassett repeatedly called Asleson's name from the base of the cliff, and a woman volunteering with the search walked within 5 feet of where Asleson was found, he said. "She claims she was in that spot for five or six days and wasn't found, and there is no way in the world that is a true statement."

Asleson appeared energetic and happy when she arrived at the UMC Trauma Center.

A short time later, Caudill, 26, addressed a throng of reporters outside the hospital, describing his mother as dehydrated with a few scrapes but otherwise fine. She was being administered fluids by IV, he said. "She told me she wants to go home."

By about noon, Asleson was allowed to briefly leave the trauma room to brush her teeth. On her way back, she spotted family members waiting to see her. Dressed in a hospital gown, she smiled broadly, stood on her tiptoes and waved.

She told them she was feeling much better.

Caudill said Asleson told him she became disoriented and weak Sunday and could not come back down after climbing some steep terrain in Red Rock Canyon in search of a lost dog. She had water with her, but he did not know when her supply ran out. "I didn't ask her that," he said. "I was just too happy to see her."

Shortly after the two were reunited, Caudill said he pinched the skin on his mother's arm and it stayed that way. So-called "tenting" of the skin can occur in cases of mild to moderate dehydration, UMC emergency room Dr. Jeff Greenlee said.

The symptoms of dehydration begin with dry mouth and thirst and worsen to delirium and shock. Eventually, it can cause kidney failure, cardiovascular collapse and death.

Greenlee, who declined to discuss Asleson's condition, said a person on a desert hike in hot weather needs at least a gallon of water per day just to replace the moisture lost to perspiration, urination and respiration.

Depending on climate severity and other factors, death from dehydration can occur in as little as 48 hours.

Greenlee said it would be very unusual, but not impossible, for someone to last five days in the desert without water. "All of us were probably surprised" when Asleson was found, he said. "Five days is a very long time."

The doctor added, however, that the effects of dehydration can be slowed by limiting physical exertion and finding shelter from the heat and the sun. Finding a local source of water or getting liquid from a plant source also could help, he said.

Caudill said his mother did all of those things.

But even that might not be enough to save someone lost for days in desert terrain, said state Park Ranger Anthony Beauregard, who has worked at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park in Red Rock Canyon for six years.

"It's difficult for someone in a place like this, even if you had knowledge of the plants and what you can live on," Beauregard said. "I am not saying it's not possible, but a lot of the speculation (among the rescuers) was that if she wanted to be found, she would have been found."

Beauregard couldn't recall how long others who became lost survived in Red Rock Canyon, but he said five days is the longest he has ever heard of anyone surviving in the area with adequate water and food.

"That would be the longest for somebody out here in this heat," he said. "Surviving that long without water would be difficult at best. ... Three days without water is pretty traumatic on the body. Most people wouldn't survive three days."

Karen Harrison, 54, a 22-year resident of the small Red Rock Canyon community of Blue Diamond, said Asleson's account of what happened doesn't sound legitimate.

An acquaintance trapped overnight on one of the ridges in Red Rock was physically more exhausted than Asleson seemed after she was rescued, Harrison said.

"That doesn't sound legit. It takes 20 minutes to dehydrate if you don't have water, and it's hot enough," she said.

However, Gene Barler, 58, a resident of Blue Diamond since 1957, said he hiked in the hills of Red Rock for four and five days at a time when he was younger. He said Asleson's story is plausible. After all, he said, she reportedly was familiar with survival techniques in the wilderness. But Bassett wonders.

"As soon as we picked her up and she took a drink of water and didn't throw it right back up, we thought there was something that wasn't quite right," Bassett said. "Her condition is highly suspect for anyone who has been in the wilderness over 24 hours.

"I have found people lost less than six or seven hours who were in far worse shape than she was in."

The circumstances surrounding Asleson's disappearance and her rescue are now under investigation. A variety of charges could be brought if it is determined that Asleson was not lost after all.

"What pisses me off, if this proves to be a phony case, is (what was done to) the volunteers," Bassett said.

The police officers were just doing the jobs they are paid to do, he said. Some volunteers took as many as four days off from work to join the search.

"It's dangerous work. It's hard work," he said.

Bassett said the search cost Las Vegas police about $10,000 per day, "right around $50,000 tax money."

Review-Journal writer J.M. Kalil contributed to this report.