A woman went missing for 12 days
in Zion National Park. Here's how
her story led to an online frenzy
St. George Spectrum & Daily News,
by
K. Sophie Will
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
10/28/2020 2:00:02 PM
ST. GEORGE, Utah — Twelve days of searching for a woman in one of America's most treacherous and beloved frontiers ended in a rescue. Holly Courtier, a 38-year-old California mom, was found Oct. 18 in Zion National Park visibly famished, pounds lighter and dehydrated. She had a concussion, kidney failure, and foot injuries due to the cold, according to her family. What was supposed to be a brief spiritual pilgrimage turned instead into a fight for her life.
Upon her discovery, she left the park with her family and sought medical care.
And then the online frenzy began.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Vesicant 10/28/2020 2:06:49 PM (No. 587554)
What, there was no place she could go be spiritual in California, home of the spiritual whacko? Or has Newsom even shut down that?
15 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
hershey 10/28/2020 2:13:08 PM (No. 587562)
Sounds like this lady wasn't in a correct frame of mind to go out in the wilderness...no map, no water filter, no 'real' equipment, especially not an Emergency Beacon ( a couple hundred bucks)...not telling anyone where she was going...lots of questions here...at least she didn't try to climb El Capitan....
24 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
snakeoil 10/28/2020 2:17:10 PM (No. 587572)
So if you drink water from the Virgin River in Zion you'll die from the toxic algae. Scratch that from one of the places I'd like to visit.
19 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
kono 10/28/2020 2:20:25 PM (No. 587580)
After having dinner together a few days before Courtier left for Zion, Oliver told the Times, "She gave me a big hug and said, ‘I love you so much.' She seemed a little choked up. Like she wasn’t going to see us for maybe a few weeks or something.”
Wha....? a few weeks? This is where the story leaves credibility behind, IMO. Getting choked up for that doesn't quite fit. As described it sounds more like the farewell of somebody expecting to die.
12 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/28/2020 2:29:25 PM (No. 587589)
"She definitely was having a mental breakdown," Strong said. "She told us later she was seeking a total disconnect from everything. She really just wanted to be alone. She had no idea it would turn into anything it would turn into or the worry she would cause or what it would become.”
She had serious problems. Her family chalked it up to her being a “free spirit” - often a euphemism for someone who frequently does spontaneous things that defy explanation.
The family set up a GoFundMe page. That, along for a huge, expensive search, is what triggered the antipathy.
For every nutcase - especially those who are framed as being religious - there are others who are willing to be duped and send money. When they find out, finally, that they have been taken, they rebel.
8 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/28/2020 2:31:38 PM (No. 587591)
PS. She had lost a nanny job. What thinking person would let someone this wobbly anywhere near their child/children…?
17 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
DVC 10/28/2020 2:41:41 PM (No. 587604)
A California nutball heads out into the wilderness and gets $12,000 from online suckers.
Sorry, I have already spent WAY too much time on this dingbat mental health case.
20 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
kdog 10/28/2020 2:48:51 PM (No. 587610)
I read about this over a week ago, and that article raised a couple of issues with her story including the place she claims to have stayed, the issue of the poison water and how she was miraculously rescued in an area that had already been searched, yet she claims to have never left. Further it was reported she walked out of the woods with no assistance, again not consistent with the concussion and kidney failure. Deputies at that time said she looked quite healthy. Finally...the treatment for a concussion is basically not to get hit in the head again, and let your brain recover. If she had a concussion on day 1, there should not be any symptoms left to diagnose a concussion on day 7, let alone day 12 or 13. This should not even still be news. She was rescued a week and a half ago. The whole point of this article seems to be to refute the earlier account I read. Why would that be???
9 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
bgarrett 10/28/2020 3:04:54 PM (No. 587628)
Should the taxpayer fund the search for a whacko?
10 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
DVC 10/28/2020 3:11:10 PM (No. 587636)
#8, I beg to differ on your concussion points. I only know of one case first hand, but it is very much different than what you sketch out.
A nephew was in his senior year of HS and was knocked down in lacrosse, played on an astroturf surface, which is laid over asphalt. Even with a helmet, his head hit the astroturf hard. He finished the game, didn't think anything was wrong and started having headaches a couple hours later.
He was diagnosed with concussion, and within a day became so disoriented and unable to concentrate on anything that he had to stay in a dark room, with minimum light and sounds for weeks. I was tutoring him in several subjects and that ended suddenly as he could not concentrate at all
After 6 weeks he could restart the tutoring, but couldn't yet safely drive to my home to study. Initially he could study for about 15 minutes then was clearly so mentally exhausted that he went to my guest bedroom and napped for about 45 minutes, and then another 15 minutes of tutoring. After another two weeks, he could do 30 minutes, 30 min rest, then 30 more minutes. He was finally able to take his finals and graduate HS a week late.
I discussed it with him, whether music may help him relax. He said he had tried quiet classical and soft jazz and both caused "difficulty processing" and were disconcerting, "jangling", not calming. Light was a problem for many weeks, too. Visual inputs were difficult to process properly, stressful.
That was about 4 years ago, he went on to Jr. college, and is absolutely fine. He is in the USMC and totally over it. Frankly, it scared the hell out of all of us, going on that long and with such debilitating symptoms. But he hit his head really hard. Docs said that only rest and quiet could let the brain heal itself, and it did.
This part of the woman's story doesn't seem out of line to me. I knew almost nothing about concussion prior to this incident, but it can be pretty scary.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 10/28/2020 3:16:44 PM (No. 587642)
Just speculating - but some people do things so loved ones will worry about them. Being 'lost' in the wilderness a few days was sure to set off alarm bells. Seems like she left behind just enough clues that someone would find her in a couple days. But - maybe it dragged on longer than expected. I'm glad she is safe but you should never go into the wilderness without leaving behind details of your adventure.
5 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
MSUDoc 10/28/2020 3:21:57 PM (No. 587649)
If she had true anuric renal failure she’d be dead in a day without treatment.
Most likely she got a little dehydrated, she had decreased urine output, her electrolytes got thrown off a bit, and they called it “renal failure.”
Because drama.
13 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 10/28/2020 4:20:29 PM (No. 587702)
I don't think there is a conspiracy but this woman is NOT stable. She was having an emotional crisis, which she is prone to, and headed into the woods on her own. The family let her go without any significant resistance. People have the right to be ditzy free spirits but they are responsible for things that happen to them. There was lots of worry in her family and the public. Lots of money and effort need to be expended to locate her, all because she had to "get away from everything". Is this woman capable of maintaining her own safety?
8 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 10/28/2020 4:31:53 PM (No. 587711)
I'm calling BS on her whole story.
Her sister said,
“She was very disoriented as a result and thankfully ended up near a water source — a river bed. She thought her best chance of survival was to stay next to a water source.”
and
"she was so dehydrated she couldn’t open her mouth,"
But the Sheriff says,
“She either took a lot of water with her or had another clean water source that was near here, but the Virgin River is not that source.”
Crazy people do crazy things and those often involve strange disappearances and outlandish stories.
7 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
caljeepgirl 10/28/2020 4:45:45 PM (No. 587718)
Good to know. And here I'd been thinking she was crazy and/or stupid the whole time!
2 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
coldoc 10/28/2020 7:39:50 PM (No. 587860)
Another fruitloop searching for the meaning of life.
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
worried 10/28/2020 8:07:20 PM (No. 587885)
Why is it usually a California flake who doers things like this? Not always, but a majority of them are from California.
1 person likes this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Folsomguy 10/28/2020 8:23:23 PM (No. 587895)
Who, outside of her family cares? If she's pulling a stunt or not is irrelevant. I don't know why any news outlet is even interested.
1 person likes this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
smokincol 10/28/2020 9:09:32 PM (No. 587936)
why is everyone in California always seeking some sort of "brief spiritual pilgrimage"? it must be a pretty desolate life living in the mini-Soviet Union or mini-Communist China, I guess. didn't excite me when I lived there.
2 people like this.
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