The California Family That Died Hiking In The Sierra National Forest Were Victims Of A Common Human Flaw

We’ve all made this mistake at some point in our lives.

It’s easy to think that Ellen Chung, Jonathan Gerrish, their baby daughter, and their dog died from something sinister. When their bodies were first discovered on August 17, 2021, with no obvious signs of trauma, investigators ran through a list that included lightning, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, cyanide exposure, illegal drugs, alcohol, suicide, and toxic algae. Officials wore hazmat suits when handling the bodies and investigating the scene.

Jonathan’s body was found seated with the baby and dog nearby, while Ellen’s body was found further up the trail. How could an entire family, including their pet, die so peacefully? Wild theories bloomed to fill in the blanks. Killer bees. Secret government experiments. Aliens.

In the end, authorities determined that the Gerrish-Chung family died mundane and preventable deaths as a result of heat exhaustion and dehydration. They simply weren’t equipped to hike a steep trail through the Sierra National Forest in mid-August, where shade had been burned off by earlier fires and temperatures ranged between 107 and 109 degrees Fahrenheit.

Humans are very bad at judging risk.

When I first learned that hyperthermia had been ruled the cause of death, I thought, “No way. Wouldn’t they just turn around when it started getting hot? Especially with a baby and a dog?”

But people are very bad at judging risk. They also think they’re more in control of their surroundings than they actually are. Judging from photos and comments made by friends to the press, the couple enjoyed hiking and being outdoors. They ventured with a baby into an area with no cell phone service, clearly anticipating a quick, easy hike with no foreseeable dangers.

When it started getting hot, things like sunk cost came into play. They’d already hiked that far, they might as well keep going. By the time they realized they were in trouble, it was probably closer to keep going than to turn around, which would explain why Ellen’s body was found further up the trail. She may also have been delirious.

It’s possible that the couple were also caught in a feedback loop, a limited-player instance of groupthink. Gerrish and Jung had probably planned their day and this hike for a while. They were excited, the weather was good, they were happy. Neither wanted to ruin it for the other. Neither wanted to be a “quitter.”

And like the fable of the boiling frog, the temperature snuck up on them, creeping slowly from the 70s into the 100s

I can say all this with some measure of confidence because it happened to me.

I was biking on a public trail near Cleveland. It was a beautiful summer day, but the heat and humidity quickly ratcheted up. I had one bottle of water and a plan to bike a certain route. That plan locked me into a mindset that shut down all common sense.

By the time I admitted defeat and turned around, I was already badly dehydrated. I flopped under a tree with a racing heart, my face throbbing from the heat. Rangers rescued me (reluctantly — there were lots of stupid people in the park that day) and gave me half a bottle of warm water. My boyfriend picked me up and I went home to lay in one spot without moving for several hours.

I knew I was too hot. I knew I didn’t have enough water. But I pushed on anyway because I didn’t drive all that way to that specific trail not to finish what I’d set out to do. It would ruin my day if I didn’t finish.

Of course, dying would ruin my day, too.

We’ve all done things like this.

We risk passing a slow car on a double-yellow line because we think we’re more in control of our environment than we really are. We’re excellent drivers. We’re better drivers than everyone else on the road.

We’re more worried about plane crashes, which statistically almost never happen, than dying in a car accident, which actually happens every 16 minutes.

We die in preventable accidents because we don’t know what we don’t know, and instead, we assume. The Gerrish-Chung family didn’t investigate the likely temperatures along the trail and therefore weren’t prepared for the heat and humidity. The weather was nice where they parked — they assumed it would be the same while they enjoyed their short hike.

Instead, they headed into extreme environmental conditions that were more than the human body could withstand and they died. They weren’t the first, and they won’t be the last.

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