On Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006, James Kim, a 35-year-old San Francisco technical writer, was found dead in the Rogue Wilderness of southwestern Oregon. He was wearing tennis shoes and light clothing. A coroner ruled that he died of hypothermia; in plainer English, James Kim froze to death.
Ten days earlier, in the early morning hours of Sunday, Nov. 26, Mr. Kim had gotten lost in the Rogue while driving toward a luxury resort near Gold Beach, a coastal town just north of the California border. In the car with him were his 30-year-old wife, Kati, and their seven-month-old and four-year-old daughters.
On the morning of Saturday, Dec. 2, after the family had been stranded on a remote logging road for six days, James Kim set off in search of help. The others stayed behind, and on Monday, Dec. 4 they were rescued and brought to safety. The search continued for James Kim, and on Dec. 6 his body was found floating in a shallow area of the Big Windy Creek.
The national news media had flocked to cover the unfolding drama, and when Mr. Kim’s body was found he was proclaimed a hero by friends, co-workers and the media for having died while seeking help.
The hero label caused a backlash in the Pacific Northwest. Some harshly criticized the Kims for what they saw as a series of negligent actions that led the family to the wilderness in the first place. Among those actions were the Kims having disregarded several warnings against winter travel through the Rogue, and their failure to take basic precautionary measures.
The Kims’ sympathizers reacted with outrage, accusing the family’s critics of compounding the tragedy by focusing on their misjudgments. They blamed Mr. Kim’s death partly on a poorly executed local Search and Rescue (“SAR”) effort, and partly on various government agencies for what they believed to be inadequate warnings, signs, maps and maintenance along the Kims’ route.
Authorities questioned Mrs. Kim after they rescued her and her children. Elements of her account were passed to the media, whose coverage buttressed the sympathizers’ version of events by focusing on the ordeal rather than any misjudgments by the Kims. In early December, the Portland Oregonian, the state’s largest newspaper, alleged that the SAR effort was botched.
The newspaper’s allegations led the Oregon governor and the Oregon Sheriffs Association to begin investigations of the SAR operation, the latter at the request of the Josephine County sheriff’s office, the principal target of the Oregonian’s criticism.
The governor’s office has released a timeline of official actions, and further results of the investigations are due shortly. Mrs. Kim has not given any public interviews since being rescued, nor have any media outlets examined the family’s actions. Mrs. Kim’s friends in San Francisco have organized fund-raising efforts for the surviving family.