Mountain of the Dead (10 page)

The fact that a number of the members of the group died from hypothermia cannot be disputed, assuming that one takes the autopsy results as correct (i.e. not falsified by pressure from outside influences). The first autopsies were held in Vizhay, which had the most basic of facilities, and it was the first five bodies – two of which were found near the cedar tree and the other three almost in a line possibly trying to get back to the tent – who were all found basically to have died from being exposed to the elements (i.e. died from the cold) and being inadequately clothed. The other four members of the group were not found until early May; three of this second group – Luda Dubinina, Semyon Zolotarev and Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolle – had received serious internal injuries, the causes of which are unexplained. The hypothermia theory, which could also be called the mundane theory, posits that everyone froze to death with some of them falling and badly injuring themselves (although Luda Dubinina missing her tongue is not so easily explained in this scenario).

One theory put forward is that the group succumbed to the phenomenon known as ‘paradoxical undressing’ – the term used to describe people who are freezing to death and who start to remove the clothes that are keeping them warm, thereby hastening their deaths.
It is assumed by some that paradoxical undressing had led to the deaths of many in the group. The supposition is that both George Krivonischenko and Yury Doroshenko were the first to die and that they both froze to death. They were both found by the search party in a state of undress and it could be taken that, in a delirious state, they both succumbed to the condition. However, this is not borne out by investigation. Some of the clothes they were wearing were found on the others (e.g. Luda Dubinina was wearing clothes belonging to Doroshenko and Krivonischenko) and had been removed after death, in some cases with the use of a knife. The bodies of Doroshenko and Krivonischenko were found side by side, which suggests that their bodies had been moved and placed in this position by the surviving members of the group – and showed respect for the two dead. What can be inferred from this – the removal of the clothes from the already dead members of the group – is that they had tried to keep as warm as possible with what they had.

The issue of paradoxical undressing is worth examining in detail but, as will be shown, it is a wrong assumption and not only that, but it does not adequately explain the events that took place that night.

Paradoxical undressing
is a condition that is common in winter survival and is known in some Western mountaineering circles as ‘cold stupid’. Whilst the term itself and the issue of hypothermia are commonly associated with mountaineering, it can occur wherever the danger of hypothermia arises. As an example, paradoxical undressing was present in thirty-three cases of deaths by hypothermia that had been collated by Swedish police in a study in 1979.
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The cases had an even distribution of age, sex and geographic location, although it was found that most occurred between November and February in areas of open land (though some occurred in towns). Significantly, arteriosclerosis and chronic alcoholism were important concomitant illnesses, with alcoholism being a factor in many middle-aged men. Ethanol and other drugs were present in 67 per cent of the men and 78 per cent of the women, with ethanol predominating in the males and various psychotropic agents (tranquillisers, sedatives and antidepressants) in the females. The mean blood concentration that was found in the males was 0.16 per cent and in females 0.18 per cent. The most frequent findings at autopsy were purple spots or discolouration on the extremities, pulmonary edema (fluid accumulation in the lungs) and gastric haemorrhages.

Hypothermia occurs when the ambient temperature is below that of the body. If clothing also becomes wet, the cooling effect of evaporation also considerably increases the possibility of hypothermia occurring. It may seem totally illogical that a person suffering from hypothermia (i.e. freezing to death) would then start to remove their clothes and hasten their own deaths. There is, however, a physiological explanation for the strange behaviour.

In conditions of extreme cold, the body attempts to protect itself by moving blood away from the extremities and into the centre of the body (the core of the body) in order to protect the vital organs. This is why hands and feet become noticeably colder first while this is happening. The way that the movement of blood away from the extremities is achieved is by vasoconstriction of the peripheral circulation. Basically, the body is attempting to insulate the inner core by losing less heat. Vasoconstriction is the vascular contraction of the smooth muscles, and this effort of contraction requires a steady input of energy, which is in the form of glucose from the body’s energy stores. However, due to the lack of blood flowing to these muscles, they eventually tire and a process known as vasodilation takes place. They then relax and start to open up. With vasodilation taking place in these blood vessels (i.e. opening up) there is an infusion of warm blood from the core of the body going to the peripheral extremities, which were cold up to this point. This has the effect of creating a feeling of excessive warmth in the victim, who is already well on the way to dying of hypothermia. Once the victim starts feeling much warmer because of this flow of warm blood to their extremities, they start to shed their clothes, thereby speeding up the process of the body temperature lowering.

By the time paradoxical undressing occurs, the person is in serious danger of dying from hypothermia. In mountaineering, there are no known examples where anyone who has reached this stage has survived without outside intervention. In fact persons suffering from the condition have been known to push away or refuse attempts to warm them when they are being helped.

Another condition related to hypothermia is known as ‘terminal burrowing behaviour’,
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which is allied to paradoxical undressing (also referred to in a 1978–94 study as the ‘so-called Paradox Reaction’, i.e. undressing
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). With ‘terminal burrowing behaviour’,
an autonomous process of the brain stem triggers a primitive, burrowing-like behaviour for protection, similar to that found in hibernating animals. This is in the final stage of hypothermia. It is essentially a final attempt by the body to save itself and is followed by unconsciousness and death. In the 1978–94 study of terminal burrowing behaviour
in relation to hypothermia, it was found that the deaths had occurred mainly with comparatively slow drops in body temperature and moderately cold conditions, which would not have applied in the Dyatlov case. There appears to have been an attempt by the second group of four (Luda Dubinina, Semyon Zolotarev, Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolle and Alexander Kolevatov) to attempt to build a shelter using twigs in a hollowed-out area of snow. However, rather than exhibiting any kind of ‘burrowing behaviour’, this appears more likely to have been a quite rational attempt to build some kind of a shelter from the worst of the elements. The lack of footwear on all members of the group shows the extreme panic and alarm that the members of the group must have experienced when leaving the tent, rather than the effects of the cold making them leave their footwear behind.

The theory that at least George Krivonischenko and Yury Doroshenko fell victim to paradoxical undressing and started removing their clothes does not explain why they had allowed themselves to reach this stage in the first place. The body starts to freeze before paradoxical undressing starts, so why did they not return to the comparative safety of the tent to at least try to keep warm? If they could not find their way back to the tent because of the darkness, or if they feared something close to the tent (see avalanche below), the theory of paradoxical undressing whilst possibly explaining some of the deaths does not explain what caused them to run away from the tent in the first place. As already stated, whilst both Doroshenko and Krivonischenko were found without most of their clothes, these clothes were later found on Luda Dubinina with cut marks on them, which suggests they had been removed from Doroshenko and Krivonischenko after they had died – by those left alive and trying to keep warm. The issue of paradoxical undressing
does not therefore apply in the case of what happened to the members of the Dyatlov group.

There are two aspects to the avalanche theory. The first is that the tent was hit by an actual avalanche; the second is that they feared they were about to be hit by an avalanche, causing them to exit the tent in a panic and get away from it as fast as possible. This would explain why they went down the slope of Kholat Syakhl rather than upwards or to the sides.

An avalanche is a sudden, drastic flow of snow down a slope and is caused by a trigger that can either be a natural one such as rain or more snow, or an artificial trigger, which can vary widely from skiers travelling over the surface, snowmobiles, snowboarders, explosives, loud sounds or even movement by animals or groups of animals.

Generally speaking, gravity acts on uncompacted newly fallen snow or on older snow that may be thawing. Air and water can mix with the snow as it moves and the avalanche, if it is large enough, can devastate everything before it, including trees and buildings, as well of course as killing anyone in its path. Avalanches are not particularly rare; there is always the possibility they could occur wherever there is packed snow in mountains.

Avalanches are classified by their characteristics, which include the cause of the avalanche itself, the type of snow, the nature of the failure, the sliding surface, the slope angle, the slope aspect and its elevation. Slopes flatter than twenty-five degrees or greater than sixty degrees generally have a lower incidence of avalanche. Human-triggered avalanches have the greatest incidence when the snow’s angle of repose is between thirty-five and forty-five degrees. The critical angle at which human-triggered avalanches are most frequent is thirty-eight degrees. It can generally be said that a slope that is flat enough to hold snow but steep enough to ski has the potential to cause an avalanche, regardless of the angle.
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The slope directly above the Dyatlov group’s tent was eighteen to twenty degrees.

One suggestion is that there was an avalanche that only hit part of the tent, causing the worst of the injuries to Luda Dubinina, Semyon Zolotarev and Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolle.
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The remainder of the group slashed their way out of the tent and then helped their injured friends to the tree line as they feared another avalanche may have been about to hit them and cover the tent completely, which explains their rush to escape without adequate clothing and footwear. While the lack of heavy snow cover on the tent could be partially explained by wind blowing away the snow, many feel that there was no real evidence to suggest there was any kind of an avalanche.

The possibility must therefore be considered that they feared they were about to be hit by an avalanche and, in the dark and confusion, this would also possibly explain why they did not return to the tent fairly quickly to try and recover clothing and footwear or even to attempt to patch up the tent and settle back inside to better protect themselves from the elements. The bodies were found some distance away (the cedar tree and den they created were in the region of almost 1 mile or 1,500m) from the tent, so in the event of an avalanche it can be assumed they may have felt they were far enough away from the tent for safety. It is also a possibility that the darkness would not have enabled them to either find their way back to the tent by trying to retrace their footsteps (assuming they could see them) or to have enabled them to make an objective assessment as to the likelihood of a potential avalanche. Initially, as they were all in the tent and could not see out, it can be assumed that if they feared an avalanche they would have heard a noise first that caused them to panic. The place where they pitched their tent on the slope of Kholat Syakhl was not excessively steep – more to the point, they were less than 1,000 feet (300m) from the top of the mountain, so there would not have been enough space for a large quantity of snow to build up to cause a serious avalanche. The snow was only just over 3ft deep (1m). Igor Dyatlov had recorded the snow covering at 1.22m on 31 January – the last recorded entry in the group diary. This was not excessive for the area and time of year, although the previous day’s entry (30 January) had mentioned how cold it was and gave the night time temperature as -26ºC. A strong wind was also blowing, which reduced the temperature further.

From a physical point of view, the tent had not been crushed by an avalanche and was not completely buried under snow. Even if this had been the case, there had been no reason for them all to run away from the tent so far and to stay away so long. The Dyatlov group were all highly experienced in these conditions and unlikely to have behaved in such a manner as to put their lives at risk if there had only been a small avalanche. Also, the broken bones in three of them are not the sort of injuries they would have been expected to receive by an avalanche hitting the tent.

The whole of the countryside immediately east of the Ural Mountains could be described as one vast military area. The production of armaments and military equipment, which was moved out of the range of Nazi bombing attacks during the Second World War, mainly stayed where it was and in most cases was expanded in order to meet the demands of the Cold War.

Whilst the bulk of the Soviet ground forces were stationed well to the west of the Urals, facing NATO – notably in what came to be known as the Western Strategic Direction in the event of war with NATO – there were still sizeable concentrations of ground forces spread around the rest of the USSR, including the Ural Military District with its headquarters in Sverdlovsk. Despite the presence of what appeared to be a military testing area in a mountain area known as Chistop, close to where the Dyatlov group were making their trip, it was generally not an area used by the army or ground forces. It has been denied by the military authorities that this (the Chistop mountain area) was used for any kind of testing. However, old pieces of military equipment have been found in the area, including what appears to be small missile parts, sections of fuel tanks and pieces of radar equipment. Despite the presence of a possible testing area on the Chistop massif, areas used by the military for exercises are designated closed areas, known as Polygons. Even though it would have been possible to enter one (on account of the sheer size of some of them), the planned route for the Dyatlov group was not one of these closed areas, and the area was also regularly used by the Mansi for hunting and herding deer. Even allowing for a possible army training exercise on Kholat Syakhl to have taken place and gone wrong, there was no evidence at the scene of blast damage or shell fragments etc, or of large numbers of tracks that would be expected if an army unit had been there at the time. This does not rule out this type of accident having taken place elsewhere such as Chistop (see Chapter 7, Thermobaric weapons, and also Special forces).